I was going through old emails and found one somebody had sent me after reading my previous entry on some favourite album covers. He championed the record cover for "The Hawk Is Howling" by Mogwai which I agree is an exceptional record cover which then brought me to doing some googling and I came across some more inspiring record covers. Heading away from photography, the following covers include illustration and sculpture. Blonde Redhead's 23 cover is illustrated by Alex Gross. Spritualized's cover for "Let It Come Down" was created by sculptor Dan Brown and the piece entitled "Yoko" was embossed into plastic. Fantastic.

Yep its been a long time coming, but finally we have our first show for 2010 booked in. Sunday March 28 at Yah Yah's along with the esteemed talents of J.P Shilo. More deets on the shows page. Gonna have to start practicing these new tunes now, cant wait to play them to you soon!

I caught up with my friend Lauren Bamford the other day to talk about photo concepts for the album artwork and after going over locations we decided we are going to do the shoot at Hanging Rock near Mount Macedon.

Coincidentally I became slightly obsessed with Hanging Rock during writing for the record, and in particular with the novel by Joan Lindsay 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' which later became a beatiful film by Peter Weir. After reading the novel I decided I had to go to the Rock, and took a few friends in car one hot public holiday last year (cant remember which one), and we navigated the rock. The place has such an amazing energy and sense of spirituality. Because of the gravity and steepness of the rock in parts, people look like they are walking in slow motion. There has been reported a few crazy incidents that have happened at the there, once a teenager slipped and fell to his death from the rock, and reportedly a girl from Ireland whilst roaming the rock apparently 'lost it' and was found running around in circles on the saddle scared out of her mind by the ranger.

I love the mystery surrounding Joan Lindsay, and apparently she had the ability to stop clocks in her presence and in the later years of her life lived in a house with no clocks. Wouldn't that be nice.

I thought it fitting to post these pictures I found of Hanging Rock that my friend Jade Arnott had posted on her blog, another coincidence perhaps as I found these just last night..

Images Courtesy of She Is Frank



Ray Staff in London is confirmed to do the mastering for the record "Early Summer" which will start in the next few weeks. Which means I'm aiming to finalise the track order by the end of the week, fingers crossed and hoping that by giving myself a deadline will push me to finally get this order done.. which I think is really close.

Ray will also be mastering the album for vinyl, which I am really excited about as I've never had one of those. A side A and side B, I'm liking the prospects and it's working well to shape the order into two halves.

Next the idea of artwork looms ahead of me, and I'm starting to get some good ideas and meeting up with a good old friend (and photographer) Lauren Bamford this week to start sharing ideas for some photo concepts. Looks to be fun.

I shared the public holiday today with some friends and we were for some reason going through a book of mine which was a pictorial of Georgia O'Keefe at Ghost Ranch shot by John Loengard. The photography is absoloutely stunning. And so were her dogs:

I would like a chow chow dog, an Alexander Calder hanging mobile and to visit New Mexico..Hmmm

It was sad this weekend to see the closure of the Tote happen.

I went down on Friday night and saw some friends, and the vibe was humming. Was great to hang out with Bruce too, and what an amazing job he did. Went down on Sunday to see the Protest and it was so inspiring to see so many people there showing their support.

Even though the Tote was a renowned rock'n'roll venue, we played several shows there maybe about seven all up including a month long residency in the front bar and many a great gig in the back room with bands such as Gaslight Radio, James McCann, Nathan Hollywood &The Orbweavers.

I think what I'll miss most about the Tote, is not only did it seem like the last of the old school venues in Melbourne and the most historical..out of all the venues it seemed the most real. The kind of venue that gave any type of band a chance...even if you werent rock'n'roll, and the staff that worked there embodied that freedom. A necessary freedom that says music is important, valid and at its best a challenging and thought provoking voice.

Lots of good memories and late nights. We'll miss you Tote Hotel!

Update on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 8:29PM by Amaya Laucirica

Photos of the last days at the Tote by Lauren Bamford