Winter Ball

Hello! My name is Dee and I'm officially 30 years old (and thirty-six days, if we're being pedantic). So far, so good. I apologise for my virtual absence as I have been busy getting lost in Tokyo, eating crispy duck pancakes in London, and being mooed at by hairy coo in Perthshire, Scotland. We returned to Sydney a few days ago via a grueling 27 hours in transit, and are mostly through the veil of jetlag that tends to cloud most brain activity after such a thing.

Here is a coo I prepared earlier - pic courtesy of Becky P

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, though, I can recall that we held a Winter Ball. We did! Our lovely friends Mushu and Jimi Linton (from Ranger Spacey) were charitable enough to join us at the Oxford Art Factory and donate their time for the cause, which was Northcott Disability Services, an organisation which helps support families living with spina bifida and other lesser known disabilities. The wonderful Carol helped us to make it all happen in a legal sense.

What a ball. Many of the crowd showed up in their finest (Jimi's Colonel Sanders tie and trucker cap combo was particularly inspiring) and the room was packed out. Unfortunately the only photo I took was this one:

Accurate signage

At the end of the evening, we had raised $606.90 for Northcott. Considering that we weren't sure if anyone would show up at all, this was a pretty mammoth effort. The Gallery Bar only holds about one hundred punters and I reckon we got them all in there. I was hoping to make $500 to at least have the "500" from the original challenge still upheld in there somewhere; we were stoked to have smashed it.

And Dusker did alright. We sounded mostly like this (handsome man responsible for filming this video asks for forgiveness for drunken zooming).

The Amazing Race!

The Australian version of The Amazing Race is finally going to air next week, so I think it's pretty safe to assume that we didn't make it onto the show, then.

This is why.



In our defence, it was 3am and we couldn't figure out how to put the photographs the right way up. Also, we had underestimated just how damned interesting we are and so were forced to cull this from about 11 minutes worth of us talking shit incredible footage to fit the 3 minute brief.

G'deve.

I don't think "G'deve" is a real term. But I'm an Australian and I vote and its past midnight so I can says whatever words I please. I'm sitting in my darkened lounge room with the remnants of my candles burning post-Earth Hour. Husband is off galavanting somewhere on a river boat with 13 other lads in a show of "hetero-masculine tradition" (otherwise known as a bucks party) and hence this is my second night alone in the house of Desmond and why I am sitting up in the lounge room in front of the computer at silly o'clock with my poncho on askew. It's a bit weird, but still distantly familiar.

Anyhoo. While I'm waiting for the folks upstairs to turn their music off, I will type some words and see if any of them are interesting.

I guess my general situation just now is important for contextualising my virtual absence. I fell back into my merch roots and have picked up a few shifts a week selling such things as t-shirts and the occasional babushka doll, for various theatre shows. Today I did Riverdance at the Capitol. OhmygodsomuchEnya. So it is nice to have some work to do that isn't too taxing and I know I am good at (although the Enya part not so nice). While most of the folks there are a little less enthusiastic than me, I am running with my early eagerness in case the novelty peters out. But I like asking the little girls if they know how to dance, and I'm not yet tired of middle-aged men commenting on how tired my arm must get holding that programme up in the air all night. And I've lost count of how many people I've made laugh. I'd say at least seven. It isn't the ideal scenario (working nights while Ben works days), and the pay isn't amazing, but it makes me feel good, which is more than I can say for any other work I've done in the last year or so.

Next week I start temping with a prestigious theatre company and it is VERY EXCITING even though I am just doing reception and such. I've also got another interview on Monday with another creative company so things are rolling in the right direction. I'm hoping to carry on doing the merch shifts for as long as I can without falling over from exhaustion. Funds have been dangerously low and so this double earning means I can finally get back on the metaphorical horse again. If it continues well I can also afford to get back on an actual physical horse again. Win-win.

Band activities have also stepped up due to a long overdue photo shoot followed by a stint in the studio recording a hit single. And also rediscovering Pop Tarts. Seriously, how good are Pop Tarts. The chocolate ones. Trying to get 5 people in the same room at the same time with instruments is becoming slowly more difficult, so this has become a priority again. Between this and the shift work I decided to quit choir. Sad but necessary. Perhaps I will take it up again later in the year. Also I need to write more songs. There have been a couple. One I can't really talk about yet. It's a surprise (not for you, but I still can't talk about it). The latest one is called "Frozenlake" and I guess I'll post my horrible demo of it sometime after the band have had a good listen to it. Harmonies are fun.

So that, dear reader, is what I've been doing for the past month or so instead of breakdancing or volunteering at a school. Sorry. I do, however, have 4 more months up my sleeve. Alright, yes, I'm wearing a poncho. But you get the gist of it.

I'm going to bed now. In the meantime here's a video completely unrelated to All.Before.Thirty but shows you what my band have been doing. Mostly being quite silly.

Every Century

And now: a song for you!

Thanks for the inspiration, Karen! I'll do a better audio recording of this some time so I can get to saving the world in highest quality possible. (It also doubles as - what am I up to now? - January's song.) Hoorah!

I walked, I left a footprint

Heavy in the sand

I felt the lapping water

Gripping at the land

I sensed the air was thicker

And prickly on my skin

I peered into the volcano

As my breath was getting thin

As your energy recedes

We forget just what we need

Small movements make a big stand

Tiny actions become a large demand

Little changes felt in giant ways

Every century still breaks down into days

I saw the heavens spinning

Clouds go rushing by

Amazed at all the colours

Ignited in the sky

I felt foundations slipping

Underneath my feet

But heard the people singing

To one determined beat

As your energy recedes

We forget just what we need

Small movements make a big stand

Tiny actions become a large demand

Little changes felt in giant ways

Every century still breaks down into days.

Songwriting catch up

Just to prove I did write some songs all those months ago, here's a snippet of what Dusker sounds like rehearsing "Blow On In" (September's song):

...oh and also I don't think I ever posted "Mallow" (August's song). I was still trying to figure out the whole blogging thing back then. I still can't figure out whether it is here or not. Anyway, in case it isn't, here's a demo of it. Imagine it getting totally Sigur Ros on your ass right at the end and you'll get the idea.

Mallow by duskerdee

Soft like a mallow

I caught you in the shadows

You climb in through the window

You're shooting all your arrows

Hold me in the winter dark

Bathe me in the summer light

The water is your alibi

The wind is your valentine

Your light is a firefly

The trains are your lullaby

Hold me in the winter dark

Bathe me in the summer light

It's a trick of the light (soft like a mallow)

It's a trick of the light (caught you in the shadow)

It's a trick of the light (climb in through the window)

It's a trick of the light (shooting all your arrows)

Kitty, I'm A Train Wreck

Two videos in as many days? I know. It's utter madness. And I also did laundry, bought groceries, played Wii, spent a ridiculous amount of time fiddling with speakers and amplifiers just so I could get disgruntled at my lack of synthesizer skills, accidentally terrified a cat, and momentarily became entranced by the pounding bass emanating through the ceiling.

"Kitty, I'm a train wreck" is a lyric I've had floating about in my repertoire for a while, waiting for an appropriate place to live. I tend to find that my own stuff is slightly darker than the material we write collaboratively in Dusker, and I'm also not a guitar genius like Jacob, so the songs always start from a different place. I'm feeling more at ease with writing on my own again, something I haven't done since the early London days circa 2007.

Anyway, I came up with the chords at the end of last week but only got around to writing the lyrics and melody inside my own head yesterday. Today was the first day I have physically put them together, so it is reassuring that it comes together the way I expected it to.

It wasn't until I made this recording and played it back that I realised the melody in the bridge is exactly the same as one of the chorus lines in 'Breaking The Girl'. Damn you subconscious! Next time I give blood I hope they are playing Beatles records.

I've emptied the cupboards, I'm ready to go

These clothes that don't fit me

Have turned me into somebody that I don't know

I'm hailing a taxi and not looking back

The truth has been twisted

And distorted, and it's going to crack

Kitty, I'm a train wreck

Kitty, let's not hit the skids

Kitty, we've got to just

Tell it like it is, tell it like it is

The sire keeps making his crazy demands

Pointing and shaming and shaking and blaming

But never looking down at his own hands

You're wearing the heart of a lion on your sleeve

You deserve a medal

For all of the shit that they'd have you believe

Kitty, I'm a train wreck

Kitty, let's not hit the skids

Kitty, we've got to just

Tell it like it is, tell it like it is

Kitty, I'm a train wreck

Kitty, let's move to attack

Kitty, I'm sorry that

You carry that load, you carry that load

On your back

You carry that load...

You carry that load...

Tiny Mantis

Congratulations, folks, you're the proud recipient of a brand new baby video.

I know I'm way overdue with these, but I'm gonna catch up soon. I actually wrote this song in time for October's due date, I just hadn't got around to putting it up yet. (Yes I am aware it is now December).

Something isn't right

But I'll pretend that nothing's wrong

You are the loveliest distraction I can think of

Please come straight on home

The worst part is, we're never gonna know

Oh tiny mantis outside my window

The worst part is we'll never know

This is the part I hate

Shining it on another day

The odds are stacked against a quiet tragedy

But please come straight on home

The worst part is, we're never gonna know

Oh tiny mantis outside my window

The worst part is we'll never know.

This Song

So you might notice I'm looking a bit defeated in this video. That's mostly because I'd had 2 previous turns at trying to record it, including the big opening spiel, and it felt like there was glue inside my head. But I got there in the end.

I present to you the first of my "songs about challenges": This Song.

And yes, I know I'm talking too quietly. But I'm not doing it over again. I'll work on it for next time, so in the meantime just put your headphones on and shut up.


I have to write a song for every month
Every month I’m 29
And Bart said each song must be based on or inspired by one of the challenges undertaken in that month, or a future or past one that has not yet been used
And I said ‘fine’

And I decided my song will be at this tempo
And my song will descend in the bridge
And my song is probably going to try and fit way too many words into every third line
And that song sounds awfully like this song

This song
This song

So this, this is the first song that I’m writing
But I’m not sure it’s any good
But that doesn’t matter, because this is a process that forces me to be creative, and not dismiss ideas or underestimate my own abilities
The way I should

And my song, it’s gonna tick all the boxes
And my song, it has a passionate bit in the middle
And my song, it moves from B to A to G to E and also an F sharp thrown in there just to make sure you’re paying attention
To this song

This song
This song
This song
This song

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Break it on down

For those who just arrived, please allow me to explain, video style.