Mark O’Meara: the blog

As predicted the four blackboard spots at the Rangers Folk Club were really very hard to come by. Nicky and I arrived a good half hour before the advertised signup time and I was there for the minute in which they all were allocated.

From the number of others with instruments it was obvious that a few people missed out, but I suppose that when you have only four spots to play to an audience of 100 or so dedicated punters there is going to be a bit of demand.

I managed to convince Tim to come and join me on stage for my three songs (this was harder than you might think). We played Ringo, With my Dog and Famous to Fifteen.

Although the audience didn’t go apeshit quite like they did for Tim (and why the hell would they?) and I was quite nervous (I suspect twists, turns, and darkness on the drive up made me quite anxious) it was good fun and people were both attentive and clapped at the right sort of spots.

Lesson for the day - it’s nice to play.

By international standards I am sure that the Dandenong Ranges are pretty tame. However when you have lived on the Western Plains for a couple of years they seem incredibly dangerous to drive around.

The road is narrow and winds pretty much constantly. There are concealed driveways every damn place and people drive like they are terribly late for their funeral.

Nicky drove us. Hoorah for Nicky.

Lesson for the day - when you drive like I do you wish the mountain would come to you.

Last night we braved the drive up the mountain to see Tim play his support spot at the Rangers Folk Club at the Olinda Town Hall.

In short, he was just terrific. He played a bunch of songs including Terry Macaffee, Cult (with a fellow on Cello), DCN348 (on madolin), Slow Motion (him playing slide and me playing rhythmn), Fender Telecaster Blues (mandolin again) and a couple of others that I don’t remember the name of.

He had the audience eating out of his hand. The change of instruments and styles of songs kept the whole thing fresh from start to finish.

It is possible that I am a little biased (given that I got to bask in some reflected glory) but I don’t think that makes me wrong about how well he went.

Lesson for the day - real talent is hard to hide, even in the hills.

When you are going away but not very far away and really for not very long it is tricky to know the best way to do the actual leaving bit.

I briefly considered spelling something out in rocks but it seemed like overkill.

So I grabbed my stuff and toddled off.

Lest you think I am a complete cad I did email my team when I arrived here to let them know I was gone.

Lesson for the day - fish.

Well I have made the journey of two whole city blocks and I am now at my new desk. Sadly I don’t have an actual office in this job (and if truth be told was never entitled to one in the old job) but other than that all is well.

Anyhow I’d better get to reading a few things so that I don’t have to on the plane early Monday morning.

Lesson for the day - the longest journey begins with a single something-or-other.

Viv asked some questions so I had better answer them.

Will your next release suck 20% less?

Let me answer this in several more-or-less-contradictory ways. It probably won’t suck at all because I really don’t think that I will make any more albums. While they have been fun to make and people have been really supportive, I am just not sure that I have a reason to make a third one.

If I was to make a third one it would be because I had a whole album worth of album-worthy songs. Since finishing Duck Ponds I have only written two songs. One was certainly not album material (In August) and the other might be but I have my doubts (Lucky).

The other thing that might drive another album (and this one is pretty unlikely) is if I get into a new phase of writing using electronic tools like Reason. Making sounds this way is very easy but making songs is much much harder. If I ever get the hang of it and think that I might have something new to offer then an album is quite possible.

Having said all of that I will still record individual songs from time to time and out them online. It costs nothing and is a bit of a giggle.

How are you coping with sharing the limelight with another famous vocalist on your last release?

My obscurity has protected both of us in this case so I am coping well indeed.

Who wrote “Mark hasn’t been stalked?”

This fabulous song was written and performed by the lovely Sarah Groube. To record it she stuck a tiny mono microphone to the side of a tv set (so it was at the right height) and just sang and played the song. It sounds every bit as good as rest of the album that was recorded again and again, track by track.

In short, she is very clever and I am very flattered to have the song existing much less on my album.

Lesson for the day - some interviews have no lessons as such.

I have been in this job for about two and half years.

This afternoon I move over to another building and a whole bunch of new people. It is the end of a really short era and I thought perhaps we should mark this by relying on a whole bunch of fairly contrived flashback sequences.

Like the time I got completely smashed and told some bloke in the pub that people were throwing children overboard. It wasn’t until I was sober enough to turn on the tv that I discovered that the bloke was none other than Phil Ruddock.

And the time I got into the wrong limosine and found myself propelled into Kylie’s spot on stage at the Tennis Centre.

Or the time I was held by the American military in Cuba after Lunchbox told them I was a Muslim. That was not so much fun come to think of it.

Lesson for the day - this is much cheaper than writing new entries.

It is a whole new world when you can see how many people visit your blog and where some of them come from.

The answer to the first is Not Many At All (which is fine).

The answer to the second is that people get here from people like Viv and Sarah’s blog. However one person found their way to my page but searching for the Wild Beast Show on Google.

Lesson for the day - I should write more about wild beasts.

I don’t think a single stranger has even just looked in the gig guide and thought “perhaps I should go and listen to Mark O’Meara”.

All of the audiences I have every played shows to have been friends, friends of friends, family and that sort of thing. It would be nice to think that strangers would just take a chance but I don’t do that so I can’t really expect anyone else to.

Lesson for the day - no matter when or where you play the audience is the one you bring.

This guitar can pretend to be all sorts of other guitars. Not that pretending that you’re something you’re not is so special. But doing it convincingly is quite a trick.

Sadly I just don’t particularly like electric guitars but I suspect it isn’t going to be priced such that I would have that decision to make.

Lesson for the day - this is what they thought of next.