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NICK

‘WHATEVER I WANT, ALL THE TIME’ BY PROM IS OUT!

December 13, 2016
MUSIC, NICK

img_1410Somewhere after our huge 2012 stage musical blowout The Last Prom, myself and the other guys from PROM decided that the most subversive move we could make was to become a straight-up rock band. It’s four years later and we’ve had a great time in the arcane world of ‘venues’, ‘support acts’ and ‘load-in times’, but we’ve decided that it would now be fun to go back to our theatre-y cabaret-y full-costumed roots.

The obvious way to draw a line under our Normal Band Phase was to release an actual record, which we did live on stage at The Phoenix the other night. We made it a triple-record launch alongside a couple of awesome acts from Sydney (Imperial Broads and Richard Cuthbert). Weirdly, or perhaps inevitably, it was the best gig we’ve ever played.

It was Julia’s idea to release on cassette, and while I default to be militantly anti-physical-media I knew that JJ could be relied on to make something that looked really fucking cool, which is a thing I certainly care about. Truth be told, when I finally borrowed my girlfriend’s 90s-vintage Walkman and had a listen it was pretty wonderful to wallow in everything I’d long forgotten about the format (like being able to hear the ghost of Side B when you get to the end of Side A).

It could definitely be argued that cassette  is the ultimate medium for these particular songs, a batch that includes ‘No-One Can Hear My Love’, the track that Luke described as my most melodramatic yet. He of all people knows what he’s saying when he says that.

 

 

 

MEET SUZY

November 1, 2016
FILM, LUKE, NICK

Last year Alison Procter put a call out for filmmakers interested in doing a short documentary featuring her sister Suzy. Nick responded, bringing me on board to direct.

suzy-project-suze-smiling

We met with Alison and Suzy, and Alison outlined her idea. Suzy has cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability, and doesn’t communicate verbally. As a result, it can be tricky to know how best to interact with her, especially upon first meeting. Alison wanted to film a video that outlined some of Suzy’s quirks and idiosyncrasies so people know what to expect. It’s a great idea, and the video ended up being a mini-profile delving into Suzy’s likes, dislikes, eating habits, and other personal information.

Alison was very conscious this subject matter is often tip-toed around, or conversely, dealt with in an overly clinical manner. She didn’t want to create ‘inspiration porn’ (her term), or kid-glove some of Suzy’s more difficult behaviour. The video had to be irreverent and funny, while still being informative. She sent Nick and I the following for inspiration – she loved the tone, and the way it treats a light-hearted subject seriously (our mission was to do the opposite essentially).

Nick took all this away, along with some other information from Alison, and wrote a script – a ‘how-to’ guide on becoming friends with Suzy. Early on, Nick had the idea of having Suzy’s ‘voiceover’ performed by a deep-voiced man (I think we all had in mind Morgan Freeman). This would set the tone from the get-go, and let people know we were taking a less precious attitude than your typical film featuring the differently abled.

The script called for Suzy to interact with a variety of her friends. For the filming, Alison graciously hosted it at her house (fabulously situated in the Scullin Cultural Precinct), and invited several people to come along for Sunday lunch. Everyone was incredibly generous with their time, patient with the film crew (i.e. me) and magnanimous about being filmed.

suzy-project-chatting

The actual filming was chaotic – from kids (being kids) to changing light, to just figuring out how best to film so many people in such a small space (we filmed in a one room ‘chalet’ in Alison’s backyard). I had prepared a shot list, but barely got time to look at it as I ran from one thing to the next. The most reliable part of the whole day ended up being Suzy. She is a natural in front of the camera, and indefatigable. Directing is an endurance sport – you are typically the first to arrive, the last to leave, and the one with the least downtime during the day. But on this shoot, I had Suzy with me the whole time as well.

suzy-project-on-couch

When I found out Suzy also regularly goes dancing, I felt that should be represented in the movie. The following Saturday I attended the Belconnen Arts Centre and filmed her class going through the motions (that’s a dad joke, but I’m allowed now).

suzy-project-really-dancing

The film was accepted for Belco Flicks and will have its debut – appropriately enough – at the Belconnen Arts Centre. I think this is a great place to debut the film as it is really imbued with a sense of community, those that gather round and support not only Suzy but her family too.

belcoflicks

To complete the film in time, I ended up doing the voiceover myself. I don’t think my voice, lugubrious as it is, sufficiently conveys our comedic intent – it will be interesting to see and hear how an audience reacts to it. If it falls short, we’ll experiment with other voiceovers ahead of releasing the movie on the internet.

suzy-project-pete

As part of the shoot, I filmed interviews with five of Suzy’s friends – there must be about 45 minutes of content, of which only thirty or forty seconds end up in the film. That’s often par for the course (and I’d much rather shoot more than I need than find myself in the opposite situation). A lot of the interviews dealt with peoples’ first impressions of Suzy, what kind of reaction they and Suzy get when out in public, and times when they’ve struggled to understand or deal with Suzy. Alison and I have talked about using the footage for some other project – the flipside to this essentially, something less about Suzy and more about the people around her. It’s a good idea, and would provide a nice contrast and balance to the existing film.

Bomb Collar- The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 7

October 13, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

wa-holiday

This is me on holiday. The run is done.

I went to Fringe prepared to be a lonely isolated cog in a huge machine. I feel very silly about that now. Of course Melbourne Fringe is just a rag-tag bunch of overworked wonderful people, just like any other arts festival. Being in the Fringe hub made me feel supported and surrounded by friends, and I was humbled by how many of the staff members made time to come and see my show considering how busy they all were.

I was super lucky to have solid crowds from the first night (by which I mean I was super lucky to have Adelaide Rief as my producer, she promoted the shit out of the show) and I was thrilled to see those numbers track up to almost full rooms by the last couple nights. The crowds in questions were generous, warm and proactive in engaging with what the show is. I got a very flattering review of the opening night, and the thing I’d been most afraid of- turning around 7 nights of the show- became the fun part. I realised that I’ve been working this show on and off for 2 years now, and it’s a solid show. It’s doing the thing I want it to do solidly.

It feels so solid in fact that I’d be mad not to make plans for some more runs. Which I will do. After a bit more time outdoors.

Bomb Collar- The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 6

September 13, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

bomb-collar-melbourne-posteringDon’t tell anyone, but I’ve actually brought Bomb Collar to Melbourne once before.

A bit less than a year ago I came and did a an alternate, 20-minute version of the show at The Village in Edinburgh Gardens. It was an extra-comedic spin on the story based around just three of the eight songs. I plugged the Last Singer into a completely different, time-travel-based plot and used the whole thing as an excuse to improve my spontaneous crowd work. That version of Bomb Collar has been somewhat sequelised in my recent twitter posts. I think most sequels would work better in tweet form.

Two shows at the Village. Four in Canberra. One In Newcastle. One in Manila. Two in Wellington. By the end of next week I’ll have nearly doubled that again. That’s the sure part.

Of course I hope that this is the best run yet. That the character pops and stays with you. That it’s clean in the right ways and complicated in the right ways. Maybe most of all that you like the songs.

All of the bodies

Shot Into The Ocean

All Of My Family Are There

I’m Made Of Tears

I’m Made Of Water

I Could Have Been Born

Anywhere

Tear Down The Ceiling That Holds Back The Sea

Let It Rain Down On Me

Let It Rain Down On Me

Come Back

Please

Rain Down On Me

Rain Down On Me

Bomb Collar-The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 5

September 5, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

Mad Max Guy

The best way to influence to future is to try to predict it. Everything you predict will be wrong and therefore eliminated from the possibilities of what the future can be.

Last night my producer and I were finalizing the Melbourne Fringe version of the Last Pop Singer’s costume. The Bomb Collar itself does a lot of heavy lifting visuals-wise, but on it’s own doth not a future-guy make. It’s been an ongoing process of juggling the character traits- he’s from a burnt-out future, he’s an entertainer, he’s from the Deep Sea, he’s coming apart at the seams, he’s playing for The Troops. Previous versions of the costume have veered harder in the direction of warped ‘national-dress’ but this time we’re zooming in on ‘post-apocalyptic pop-star’. Which involves judging what clothing items available today might persist 90 years from now. We’ve made our judgments, rendering them definitively wrong in the process.

It’s been a similar approach with the music. I made a conscious decision that music in this future has eroded to it’s bare-bones, reduced to cut-price version of it’s most essential elements. But what are those elements? I made a selfish call that they would be overwrought pop melodies and Suicide-esque synth presets. My platonic dream of the musical future, which now thanks to me will never be the one that comes to pass.

If I Reach The Farthest Bend

Your Song Can Pull Me Back Again

We’ll All Be Gone When Our Live End

But Songs Will Light Our Way Again

Bomb Collar- The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 4

August 31, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

AuntyEntityWe Don’t Need Another Hero was the lead soundtrack single from 1985’s Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. It was performed by the legendary Tina Turner, who also featured in the film as the inscrutable Aunty Entity. The music video has Turner performing the song in full costume as her character, which seems only appropriate as the song is doing something very unique and very great.

Out of the ruins
Out from the wreckage
Can`t make the same mistake this time
We are the children
The last generation
We are the ones they left behind
And I wonder when we are ever gonna change
Living under the fear, till nothing else remains
We don`t need another hero
We don`t need to know the way home
All we want is life beyond
Thunderdome
What an incredible type-rope walk between generically ballad-y pop lyrics and extremely specific references to the story world of the third Mad Max film! And then the way the the end of the chorus just goes ‘fuck it’ and just talks about escaping Thunderdome as if of course you’ll know what that means. (also the song canes)
This is an obsession I’ve kept coming back to- fleshing out a genre storyworld through the restricted prism of conventional pop lyrics. Bomb Collar is an attempt to do this across a whole show, the words to the songs being every bit as vital to an understanding of the character and his circumstances as as any dialogue spoken in between. Also I’ve still tried to craft each song so that it convinces as a stand-alone unit of pop songwriting.
Bomb Collar is the latest and most refined of my many attempts to pull off this same trick. But why? In a world where the accepted standard for a ‘concept albums’ involves using the same character names across a few tracks and then explaining things in the liner notes, why am setting myself such strict parameters? Why take so many steps toward stage musicals without just jumping all the way in?
I do love musicals. So do you. Yeah, yeah, most of you will tell me you hate or dislike musicals, but every single one of you has at least one that you love. Disney films way count. You can tell me that it makes no sense to you for a character to tell you their feelings and thoughts through song but meanwhile that’s what every song you’ve ever liked listening to is doing.
So musicals are factually great. But for a neurotic structuralist like me they’re a little bit too open a format to work in. The divisions between Song and Book a little too free. Also the dominant musical aesthetic of modern musicals is a little lacking in grit even for a pop-pushover like me.
Cabaret shows always have the advantage of intimacy, and an expectation of doing a lot with a little. It’s a tighter format and one that supports a single-character narrative, so I was easily drawn to it. I particularly love a good period cabaret show, one where the songbook of an era is used to mirror a characters’ experience. But I’m a songwriter, I want to write new songs, and I’m not the best candidate to capture a bygone period anyway. So…
I realised that there was a period that I could write the traditional songbook of and create a period setting for- the future. In the same moment I realised that the challenge would be to extrapolate a folk song tradition from a starting point of todays’s chart pop music. I would also have to map those songs to a sci-fi protagonist and make his story coherent and compelling to an audience.
And that is the amount of ridiculous restrictions that allow me to start writing something.
The first song I wrote is now the second song in the show. It’s a war anthem, about a legendary military leader in the Deep Ocean Colonies, and it’s designed as a sickly descendant of some of my favorite Shock and Awe Diva songwriters like Linda Perry (if you don’t know her, she’s written a lot of songs you really like). It’s called Red Song, here are some of the words.
She rode as the head
Of a dragon made of men
And her words, once a secret
Will never be again
She said join your voice
To the thunder that splits the sky
Say it’s not anybody else’s voice
Who you embrace as your own tonight
We are free to be enemies
We are free to be family too
But if we meet on the battlefield
We will see just whose cause is true

Bomb Collar- The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 3

August 23, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

Last Prom FlashbackThe zero version of Bomb Collar was a show I did in 2012 called The Last Prom (pictured above). It was a stage musical built around a band I was in at the time, also called The Last Prom. The band was cast as the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse and I played the Antichrist, who in this show was a teenage nerd attempting to stage the Apocalypse as a 80s-teen-movie-style prom night.

The Last Prom was presented in the strict format of a live set by a band. All of the storytelling, exposition and drama had to be delivered as either song performance or between-song-banter and crowd work. It was a bit of a creative straitjacket, the sort of thing I really like. Like a lot of my stuff it was a foolishly self-indulgent blend of my different pop culture obsessions. But it went well. The crowd Responded To What We Were Doing.

Bomb Collar has carried over the dramatic conceit of the Live Gig. Everything the audience experiences is encapsulated by the Last Pop Singer Alive performing to his Audience, who are a comically threadbare revolutionary army staging a haphazard push into the Deep Sea Colonies.

So why? Short answer is that 15 years of playing in rock bands has left me with deep, complex and conflicting feelings about the Live Gig as a thing. You do it for long enough and accepted facts of life like stages, support slots and sound checks become absurd constructs crying out for deconstruction. Even in the gigging bands I currently play with (Babyfreeze, The Missing Lincolns and the earnestcore cabaret act that evolved out of The Last Prom, now just known as PROM) I’m neurotically tugging at the edges of what it means to be on a stage delivering a set of songs to an audience. Theatre work like Bomb Collar allows me to interrogate the Gig in an even more aggressive and direct fashion, using fantastical genre trappings and conceits to smash certain metaphors into your face.

My hope is that the gig structure also provides a recognizable anchor for the audience and helps me get away with ladling all kinds of artistic and cultural reference points into the one show. At the very least it’s a rigorous format with some clear standards for success or failure. If that’s a particularly dorky way to talk about what bands do, well that gives you a very good indication of what to expect from the show.

All the good and bad types of pain

I won’t speak any lies, You’re only gonna speak my name

When we’re together.

Bomb Collar- The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 2

August 17, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

BC Broadway

So let’s Year 12 Business Studies this bad boy.

BOMB COLLAR S.W.O.T. ANALYSIS FOR POTENTIAL INVESTORS

Strengths- The show has been around the place, it’s pretty well-drilled and evolved. The story world is clear now, people get what’s going on and who the character is. I’ve learned how to stand still when I have to. I’m singing well these days. While I was doing the Fringe photo shoot with Adam the other day I finally worked out what kind of moving around I have to do in the final scene. I have an actual producer for this season who really knows what they’re doing. I have an incredible venue right in the Fringe Hub and it’s the exact right size (28 seats).

Weaknesses- I’ve never tested my modest, lo-fi sound and lighting rig across 7 nights. Reckon I’ll need to have a whole back-up rig made but I don’t know if Adam and Paul have time to make it also how do I repay them for all the free work they’ve done on this project for me. Promotional Avenues for sci-fi black comedy cabaret are proving a real challenge to find. One day I’m going to make something in just a single genre and medium. I promise. I haven’t 100% cracked the ultimate version of the costume yet.

Opportunities- I need to tweak the script so there’s versions of the thing that can play to tiny (sub-five people) audiences just in case that happpens. That’s fine, I’m actually excited for that, it’ll be good for me. That said I’ll gonna try to really DO the promotion and social media stuff this time. I have lots of help this time, I can do it. Whatever happens it’ll make the next thing easier. Man I’m looking forward to the couple of weeks in Melbourne, there’s some people up there I’d love to collaborate with while I’m there. No wait, bad Nick. Focus on this one thing, for once in your life.

Threats- That NZ Fringe performance got a bad review. People will see it, maybe it’ll come up ahead of the good reviews. Some of it was just the reviewers’ taste but more of it was that I didn’t meet the task of performing to a tiny crowd. CANNOT HAPPEN AGAIN. I LOVE TINY CROWDS. WILL ROCK THEIR LIVES WITH INTIMATE INTENSITY. I HOPE IT’S ALL TINY CROWDS, CAN’T WAIT. Also the same old threat that the total potential crowd for a sci-fi black comedy cabaret is limited, but look I refuse to admit that.

Don’t Let Your Blood Cool Down

I Need You All Gone Crazy

I Think You Understand

I Think You Want It Maybe

It’s Like A War In Heaven

Bomb Collar- The Melbourne Fringe Production Saga Pt 1

August 11, 2016
MUSIC, NICK, WORDS

Bomb_Collar_Credit-Adam_ThomasImage By Adam Thomas

So I’m thrilled and daunted to announce that the one-man sci-fi black comedy cabaret show that I’ve spent the best part of the last two years developing and touring has secured a seven-night season in the Melbourne Fringe Hub (The Parlour Room to be exact). Tickets on sale here.

Regular Lick-Nuke-ers have followed Bomb Collar’s genesis from a seed of an idea through development shows in Newcastle, Manila and Wellington to it’s Proper Debut as part of The Public Theatre program in Canberra late last year. Still, it’s feels like the rubber only really hits the road from now. I’ll have seven nights in which to make crowds laugh, cry and sing-along to the bleak adventures of the Last Pop Singer Alive, armed with only myself, a handsome-if-aging 30-seat theatre space and around $150 of lo-fi sound and lighting effects strapped to my body. I invite readers to follow me for the next six weeks as I focus up and hunker down.

I’m gonna share a few lyrics from one of the songs from the show in every post. This one was written long before our main characters birth, by someone whose peaceful-but-drab life in the deep sea colonies had them questioning what lay above.

Who built the lens at the top of the tank

That filters the sunlight down?

Who let us know that there’s more than this ocean

And made a boy dream of the ground?

Far from these trenches that stretch through the deep

There’s lands that are dry and flat

Why let us know it

Why make me dream of that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Slip Lane! Featuring Nick?!

August 4, 2016
NICK

Slip Lane One

Acting has become a increasingly important component of my various fruity creative projects, so I was probably overdue to be part of something where I could deliberately work on my acting skills in isolation. That said, If Aspen Island Theatre Company head honcho Julian Hobba hadn’t approached me directly and asked me to read for a supporting role in his new play The Slip Lane then there’s no telling when I might have pulled my finger out.

Slip Lane 2

The Slip Lane is a reality-bending drama set in Gunghalin. It tracks the halting and fragile friendship between Matthew and Missy (portrayed in this initial production by Dene Kermond and Claire Moss) and the various ways in which their suburban existential angst is preyed upon by a literal demon from hell. The role of the shape-shifting demon was shared by myself and the frighteningly talented Emma Strand.

It’s a dense, bleak and fun play that picks at the Australian Middle Classes’ wonky process of self-definition and resists any easy thesis thereof. Julian (who produced the Public Theatre series at which Bomb Collar made its’ Canberra debut) sent me the script back in November and it was an offer I couldn’t pass up.

Here are a couple of revues.  You’ll notice that neither single me out for gross incompetence and I’m taking that as a good sign. It was every bit as challenging and humbling as I expected to work as part of a Proper Grown-Up Theatre Production and I was given a lot of generous support by the rest of the team. Watching the rest of the cast employ their full range of Actor Skills (script analysis, vocal warm-ups, impro games etc.) drove home just how untrained my approach is. I encouraged Julian to just plain tell me what to do as much as possible, and focused mostly on remembering my lines, relaxing and trying to stand in the right spot.

I feel like I made a fair-ish fist of my role and started some kind of structured skills progression in terms of ‘acting’ rather than just ‘performing’. It’ll be an interesting challenge to keep that progression going now that I’m back to my normal juggling-half-a-dozen-projects-at-once lifestyle. I’ll admit that our month of full-time rehearsals was an intense experience for a flighty dilettante like myself. That said, it’s only ever taken the merest sniff of positive reinforcement for me to double down on creative challenges for myself, so watch this space.