The Journey Itself Is Home

Here is a nice one from the elephant ride, showing Wonderbrass (minus Sylvía Hlynsdóttir) and yours truly!

This one is from Damian, regarding the photo below:

“The guys in the photo were Nate and Pete from New York who make up the band Shy Child. They played “Later With Jools Holland” with us and I sat a few meters in front on Nate’s drumkit and was totally blown away when they played “Drop The Phone”. Pete famously plays a “keytar” which is a keyboard you wear with a strap, like a guitar. He modified his so he can play it with two hands so he can control a couple of different synths at once. Shy Child were on the bill at Big Day Out (I only caught their set in Perth as they were on early but they ROCKED it there!) and they also opened for us at The Sydney Opera House.

“I love the raw energy they have, their sense of humour and their sense of synchopated rhythm and the fact that they are the only people I’ve ever seen playing in that configuration. It’s like they’re a cross between The White Stripes and Kraftwerk with a bit of The Beach Boys and Silver Apples thrown in - and with a total party vibe. I’d urge anyone who has the chance to go see them live, and if you can’t do that, buy their album “Noise Won’t Stop”, or even better, do both!

“Oh, and the real Shy Child trainspotters would know that they did a remix of Tokyo Police Club which for some bizarre reason was rejected. It got leaked onto the net and it’s brilliant, I thrash it regularly and think it shows a lot of the potential the band have. I really like them because I’m genuinely excited to see where they’ll go from here - and I love having that feeling about any musician in any genre.

“Oh, and just incase you or anyone else was wondering, they were very very good guest Reactablists!”

More info: http://www.shychild.com/

http://www.myspace.com/shychildmusic

Jools Holland Performance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIamkGkUCaU

We had a GREAT, UNBELIEVABLE time in Bali. Some of the highlights were consorting with monkeys in a temple dedicated to Shiva, seeing the Batur mountain and going elephant riding.

The latter was a bit scary (it isn’t exactly like riding in a car), but I got used to it fairly quickly.

The weather was also wonderful, though maybe a bit hot.

We arrived in Jakarta today. I should say most of us are now rested and ready for another go at doing music!