Friday, March 16, 2007

The Adventure of Liz and Liv Part One - Final Chapter

Monday 12 March 2007 - 3pm

On the bus, on the way back from Port Fairy Folk Festival. 8 of us this time - Kate, Keir, Scotty, Sallie, Steve, Clare, Liz and Liv. 5 in the band, and 3 merch bitches. yup, 3. excessive? well, we sold 300 cds after the first gig...

madness. doing merch in an environment like this is like being encompassed in a little love circle, with everyone raving about how wonderful everything is. on the other hand, it's total chaos.

this year, we all stayed in a house together (8 people, 1 bathroom...) which was awesome - well, except for the fact that it was a million miles out of town, but we had our own little free taxi service. performers' perks.

this trip was a bit of a last blast for us, because liz moves to the northern territory in a couple of days, and liv will be staying at ocean shores till the end of june, then who knows?!

there's a poor unfortunate creature at the front of the bus with motion sickness, so we've had to stop for her to throw up. that would suck. luckily for all, keir came to the rescue with wet ones, and saved the day, in his usual understated style.

the lowlight of this year's festival was the food - appalling! ichy. i didn't seem to matter where we ate, it all seemed a bit tasteless - except for the fruit stand, which was liv's saviour.

this weekend we launched frankie walnut's debut ep - highly recommended, check kate's site or transport's site (links on left). "where have i been all your life" is an absolute cracker - a definite festival highlight was watching the sound crews and stage managers pissing themselves to that.

here's a tast little tidbit:
"i just won $15 on keno
wouldn't it be nice
it would really cap the evening off
if i could get into your tights"

given the lack of available steak at the fest, liz had to console herself by drinking guiness - purely for the medicinal properties, of course. liv also realised that a fruit diet is sadly lacking in iron, and also deigned to have a few pints during the festival. luckily it was on tap, which always adds to the flavour. there's only one bar at the festival, but it's massive, and we mean HUGE! it's bigger than most of the stages.

we met some amazing people there - you know who you are - and getting to hang out with clare after such a long time was a real treat. frankly, not counting the food, the weekend was faultless.

but all that aside, what else has been happening in the world of liz and liv?
liz recently finished her work in maleny, and has been celebrating her unemployment ever since. she's about to embark on a 10 day road trip from the glasshouse mountains to darwin in her 1992 holden vp commodore (bommodore) with her newly returned home sister (as regular readers know, sarah has been in england - check the links for her exploits).

liz will be working until the end of 2007 in Jabiru, hopefully as a tour guide. expect to see liz's triumphant return to woodford 2007 - 08.

liv will be working in lismore, and house sitting for her family until the end of june, then who knows? liv is thoroughly enjoying not knowing, and is convinced the right path will show itself in the near future. she suspects it may already be starting to...



we're now flying back to brisbane. the festival has drawn to an end.

it seems an impossible task to try to summarise the experiences of the last 15 months, so we're just not even going to try, except to say we are both completely different people at the end of this journey than at the beginning. hell, we even look totally different, as liv has just noticed, reading back through the blog.

this will be the final entry in this part of the adventures of liz and liv, but never fear! we both intend to continue posting from out different locations, to keep our fans up-to-date with our extravanagt, exceptional, excruciating, excellent adventures. we love you one and all, and than you for the joy you've brought to us.

In future adventures:

* liz and liv become professional certified merch bitches! (actually that's true)

* liv does a Cert I in Communication at Batman TAFE (seriously considering it)

* liz becomes a professional food taster (she may as well be making money out of it)

* liz and liv's photos go international! (also true - see transport promo shots)

* liv's hobbit fetish blossoms into a full-blown obsession, and she moves to new zealand

* liz buys a combi van, fills it with paints, and drives around tasmania teaching underpriveleged children to fingerpaint

* liz and liv hire an articulated vehicle for the next leg of their journey - either that or buy the yellow school bus and fit it out with a brown couch, microwave and spa bath!

* liv takes a vow of silence

* liz also takes a vow of silence, but only lasts a few hours, till she goes to a cafe, sees someone with food, and asks if she can have a bite

* liv, inspired by kate miller-heidke, ange gabrielle, and melanie adams begins studying opera, then realises she accidentally broke her silence vow, and gives up on both

* transport, emma dean, me, the barleyshakes and kate miller-heidke all become ridiculously world famous and take liz and liv on extensive international tours

* tiaras reappear on the catwalks - liz and liv are universally renowned as the instigators of this trend

* liz and liv stop talking bollocks (yeah right..)



The flight is nearly over. the champagne has run dry (and gone to our heads). the 15 month festival has come to an end, and we are ready to face a new beginning.

we look forward to sharing it with you all.

with all the love we can possibly give (which is a whole lotta love...)


Liz and Liv

Kisses!

Le Phat

9 January 2007 - 4:27pm

funny the way things happen at just the right time.

when you think you want company, to take your mind off things, nobody is around anywhere. when you're dwelling, and need a bread from yourself, you find the boys from Le Phat eating chips in a park, just metres from where you had lunch in the same park about an hour before.

well, that was my day today, so far at least. i came here to escape the craziness, and found 3 total nutters to hang out with.

a couple of weeks ago i was totally losing faith in my instincts. my truse in the universe was wearing thin as one of these leg hairs i really need to get waxed (i think i've been in byron too long already...)

sometimes it's easier to just eliminate the things you DON'T want than to work out what might actually be a good idea.

isn't it easy to work out good ideas for what other people should do? solving the rest of the world's problems in a vain attempt to make your own seem just that little bit more insignificant.

i've been on the receiving end of that lately. i don't think i quite realised i had so many dreadful issues that need to be dealt with IMMEDIATELY!!!

hmmn... writing's not heloing today. i'm off to dance this out instead.

January 2007

8 January 2007 - 3:04pm

A new beginning.

The first page of a new journal. This is the end of a chapter and it brings on an unfamiliar experience.

i'm so used to having a path, and knowing where i'm going - things have been so clear to me for a long time.

right now, absolutely nothing is settled and certain. i'm saying goodbye to a large part of my life, and trying to work out what's next.

i guess most travellers experience this sense of displacement at some point - the feeling that you've changes so much that your old life just doesn't fit anymore - like a pair of pants you used to wear in school, but now the cuffs don't reach your ankles, and the zipper won't do up, and you suddenly realise they're fluro orange and covered in daisies, and they're made of parachute material - and for the life of you, you just can't work out what on earth you saw in them in the first place.

i know this sense of dissatisfaction is a good thing, because it will prevent me from becoming stagnant.

i don't know where to begin to start summarising this past year, so instead, for now, i'm looking to the future - preparing the for the adventures to come.

The Barleyshakes






Alan Kelly will herefore forever after always be known as "pants man" in honour of this outfit (we're creating a whole outfit - erin is kilt man, and ben is hat man. just need shirt man and shoes man, and we're right. as you've probably guessed, these pics are of the barleyshakes - belinda, we LOOOOOVE that top you're wearing. hot, baby!

just for the record, joe (in the police cap) doesn't always look like that, but i'm shamed to admit i actually quite like that look. sure he looks like a stripper....

hanging at the festival






this is how we got around the festival! after the last gig, liz, kate, steve and i were all riding on it with the gear, and the people around us were going faster than the cart - and staring at us, and whispering! what a weird experience. liz and i became rock stars by association. note the hot kate shirts - the shot of the liv, liz and clare is from the first gig - we needed 3 tiara-wearing merch bitches to cope with the rush. kate's mum came and helped too - answering questions and stuff, so there were four of us hanging in our new kate singlets. v. comfy - highly recommended. didn't sell a lot though at the fest, given most of the time we were all wearing multiple jumpers...

also note shot of our new friend ben - apparently a kickarse guitarist, although we haven't heard him play live yet. missed all the gong show stuff doing photo shoots and gigs and drinking beer (we had our priorities straight...)

kate miller-heidke - yes, more shots of her. yes, we do have other friends, it's just that she's so damn gorgeous, it's easy to take pics of her.








it's just so hard not to want to photograph kate in her singing glory - especially when the lighting was so good.

i love the shot where the light of heaven is shining down on her head * and the crowd shot - 2500 people apparently were at kate's first gig




*please note - light in photo may not be actual light of heaven.

transport photo shoot










right. so i know you're all desperate to see the transport promo shots, so we're putting a little sneak preview here.

scotty seemed to take to the whole makeup thing a little too easily, while steve appeared positively freaked out by it all, and keir kept smudging his mascara (hence the pic of liz fixing it).

liz and i had a ball taking these shots (liz was style director) and we got a sneak preview of the new transport album - kicks arse, man. loving the version of this infidelity!

if the promoters are happy with these shots, they'll be used for transport's US, UK, and Canada tour in a couple of months. we'll be like so like internationally famous and stuff, like yeah!

please remember not to take the L.J. Hooker shot seriously - we love it, but they just look so much like a boy band

oh the other important thing to know - the shot where keir's putting his fingers into the other guys' ears - that pain on scotty's face is real - keir asked liv to count down the shot, then stuck his fingers in the others' ears to get a cool realistic shot. we love you, keir, but don't ever stand next to us in a photo, pleeeeease!



Life at Port Fairy Folk Festival.

Most of you would know by now that Liz and Liv have just spent 4 days at port fairy with kate miller-heidke and her band, so we thought we'd show the world a little of what it's like to be on the road.

the first shot here is a game keir found, and everyone fell in love with, expect Liv, who knows absolutely nothing about geography. live knows where australia, new zealand and ghana are, and that's about it. seriously.

the other shot is sallie and liz chilling out the back, waiting for the bus to arrive to take us to a gig. unfortunately we didn't get any shots of us playing quick scrabble (i still think i was robbed) but you get the idea.