SONIC MOVES AT CASA BLANCO

There are recuperative days when an old cobber or two will rock up armed with wine, wood and wire and heads full of music unplayed which urgently needs replacing with fume. On this bonnie day, Mick Wordley of Mixmasters lurched in with his dog and Joe Manning came down off his riverboat through The Adders, where he collected GiGi (who took these phone snaps) and Syko who took this phone vid of us remembering the whole three chords of All Along The Watchtower - PLAY IT LOUD. I always swore I'd never attempt to play this, having grown up in awe of John Wesley Harding, then the Hendrix version, then Bobby and The Band blistering it again live on Before The Flood. It's like Leonard begging people to back off their habitual destruction of his beautiful Hallelujah. Anyway, this Watchtower was no rehearsing, one take, nice and short.

... here's me much later on another  night, gettin blues outa the old Gibbo through my Pigpen hat ... photo by Noah Vice, who helped get that Youtube thing up ... thanks Noah!

... then I had a delightful surprise visit from the first two drummers I ever met: Stephen "Stewart" Sprigg (left, below) and Paul Thredgold ... Stewart slapped skins in a wild little trio we had with Chris Mitchell in Mount Barker around 1970-71 ... Stew and Chris were publicans' sons; I was the son of a preacher man ... and we all had strong patient queenly mothers, lucky us, standing back, watching, waiting to save ... Stewart helped me get work in his Dad's pub when I fled from home ... Threddie, a mechanic's son, always had the coolest, hottest cars ... he taught me a lot about '50s and '60s rock'n'roll, gave me his copy of Oscar Peterson's Night Train and went off  driving trains all over Australia for nearly fifty years ... It was a very sweet thing to have these old cobbers surprise me ... that's a split  of the historic Tommie Wattie Stomp Claret on the table ... photo by Raylene Thredgold