Pumpkins, Bagels and Avocados. The three biggies. Take heed of these foodstuffs and tremble before you dare to take a knife to their treacherous flesh.
Yes, I've finally got around to writing again and can finally bring myself to re-live that infamous couple of weeks starting with the unexpected death of fellow muso and fiddle-friend, Ray Schloeffel. His wonderful, fluid improvising and lively personality (not to mention that wonderful earth shaking chuckle) will be sadly missed. He was the talented composer of that wonderful tune "The Blacktown Jig" that Jigzag played many times with Andrew Clermont in our earlier days. I was not even able to attend the funeral as I was incapacitated and unable to drive. Let me explain...

The Illawarra festival started out on a promising note. We were greeted with multiple pictures of the most famous back in the Illawarra (Caroline's famous holding the fiddle photo) and then were handed our souvenir programme in the inaugural edition of the new Aussie folk mag "Trad and Now" to be greeted with our own picture on the front cover! The first concerts was lots of fun and I was enjoying the early festival ritual of walking two steps, embracing a friend and then having half a conversation before agreeing to meet later in an impossible timeslot between clashing gigs. Preparing some lunch from my trusty blue esky in the warm sunshine was an inviting prospect, but too much animated conversation combined with the wrong tools for an avocado stoning operation let to quite a sudden change in my fortunes. Mind you, adopting a Psycho-style grip on my pocket knife was inviting disaster, and when it slipped straight off the stone and deep into my palm causing an instant weird tingling in my index finger I knew straight away that I'd put an end to all immediate bass playing engagements. Off to a succession of hospital waiting rooms with gory stories from my friend Quentin to keep me amused. Thank you, all of those audiences in Jamberoo that sent me love in song via my mobile phone. You made me cry! It was a crazy afternoon of waiting. Alternately giggling light-headedly at bad jokes, cringing in waves of pain and mentally agonising over the impact this would have on Jigzag. One thing I did discover is that if you want your hand injury to get attention, tell the doctor you are a professional musician; they are sure to take you a lot more seriously. Before I pointed this out I think they were content to send me home with a bandaid! By 9pm that night I finally saw the orthopaedic surgeon at Wollongong hospital who decided to knock me out cold and take a dig around. He found that a nerve had been severed but all the tendons were thankfully unharmed. I tried to get back to the festival to at least see the last show, but I found that the general anaesthetic had left me in a state where I couldn't even stand unaided for too long, let alone walk. Sorry guys, I tried!
Meanwhile, back at the festival, people were busy showing what 'folk' music is really about: Community! A bunch of musos gathered around Greg and Caroline to complete the remaining performances under the alias "Gig-bag". A huge thanks to all of you who took part, especially my dear friend Damon Davies, who I'm told filled my shoes admirably! I'm not qualified to give descriptions, but apparently his Liz impersonations were quite uncanny. We had one day after the festival to get ready for our trip to the Femme Funk Festival in New Caledonia which was also the day of Ray's funeral. After taking part in a fiddle tribute Caroline momentarily chose to deposit her violin case on the road while packing up the car to leave, only to have it run over by a fellow fiddler seconds later. I know only too well the sick feeling you get inside your stomach when you witness serious damage to your instrument. I'll leave it to Caroline to furnish details, suffice to say we had a matter of a few hours in which to find a suitable replacement instrument to take away. Thanks to Jo Moore of Dirty Lucy for coming to the rescue!
Well... we made the plane and arrived intact. The warmth and beauty of Noumea instantly assured us of changing fortunes. There was one very close call when Greg stepped out in front of a bus, only to be restrained by Caroline at the last moment. It's tricky remembering to look for traffic in the opposite direction! (oh and I did get my wallet stolen while over there, losing about $400 dollars). However, despite everything, we were determined to make the most of it. Marie France, Laure and Julie of Towanda Productions looked after us so well and even arranged a very talented Melanesian bassist to fill-in at the last minute. All things considered we had a good time and enjoyed making new friends (in particular the very talented Nedra Johnson from the US, check her out) and deepening our relationship with our Aussie friends Akasa who were also performing at the festival. I also had a blast of a night with a whole bunch of French-speaking locals singing Karaoke for the first time in my life. You'd be surprised how popular early Madonna is amongst the New Caledonian population. I hope to get some island photos up soon, but I have to wait for my sources to come through...for now, here's a picture of some very friendly French students from Queensland that we ran into over there.
The Wollombi Festival was hard for me without a bass and a bad cold, but thank you so much to Quentin Fraser for filling in on bass. Thanks also to all those who came to the Harp bringing good wishes for my recovery, and for all the cards, gifts and messages. My hand is well on the way to recovery. I tied my shoelace up on Tuesday, played a few notes on bass yesterday and actually got through a whole song today. Sebastian misses the audiences so we'll both be back at work very soon. Take care, and remember handy hint No.3. Cut the food not the hand! Cut the food not the hand!
~liz