April
3, 2008
G’day
all
Time
for another instalment from Eric Bogle World, the happiest kingdom
of them
all - or should that be the crappiest?.............
At
the end of the last Bogleblurb the festive season was looming
threateningly
above us all. Well, in the Bogle household it passed uneventfully
and relatively
stress-free I’m glad to say. I didn’t get the Hummer
All-Terrain Vehicle with Built-In Machine Guns that I’d
asked Santa for....I got lots of pairs of socks mostly, which,
upon reflection, I certainly needed more than the Hummer. Then
on 27th
December it was back to work, and off to the Woodford Festival
in Queensland.
I’ve
mentioned the Woodford Festival in previous blogs, it certainly
is a unique
event, with over 1200 musicians and performers involved, and around
100,000
people attend the festival, which is held throughout the week
between Christmas
and New Year. It all culminates on New Year’s Eve with a
huge pagan-like fire ceremony, where people dance semi-naked around
this huge fire while various
effigies are burned as an offering to the Music Gods. This year
I think it was an
effigy of Bob Dylan. I have heard a rumour that next year it will
be an effigy of me........
Anyway,
a good time was had by all, and John and I appeared in a couple
of
concerts and were pretty well received. Oh, and it rained, in
fact it chucked it down
in true Queensland fashion. Mind you, as South Australians we
were pleased to
see the rain, hadn’t seen a downpour like that in South
Australia for 6 months or so,
so it was a heartening thought to think that it still occasionally
rained somewhere in Australia, if not in the burned piece of desert
that John and I call home, i.e. Adelaide.
In March this year Adelaide had 16 consecutive days of temperatures
above 35 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fht. for you Northern Hemispherians)
a new
Australian capital city record. The meteorologists reckon it happens
about every
3000 years or so. Don’t know how they work that one out,
but I’m happy I won’t
be around the next time it happens.
Back
home for New Year, drought notwithstanding, which I celebrated
as usual up
at our river shack with some friends and a particularly fine bottle
of malt whisky, very relaxing and enjoyable, at least the bits
I remember were...... however, when the
effects of the whisky wore off I found that 2008 felt and looked
much like 2007,
except that there was the depressing thought that in 2008 I’d
eventually get to
be a year older. I suppose I should have been grateful that I’d
actually survived
until 2008 in a reasonable physical and mental state, but I’ve
always been a glass
half-empty sort of bloke......
A
couple of weeks break then, and off to Sydney, did a concert at
the Harp Hotel
in Tempe, it was a great night, packed out with Eric Bogle fanatics
who were all
single females under 40, and all endowed with big... generous
natures....no, I’m
making that bit up, but it was packed and it was a great night.
Illawarra Festival in Wollongong followed, and guess what, it
rained again, and it was pretty serious
rain. But whilst the poor old festival goers struggled through
the mud and the rain,
John and I just headed back to our luxury hotel room to have a
hot spa and relax.
Not
bad eh? I must admit I did have the odd twinges of guilt thinking
about my
fellow folkies out there in the mist and mud, but I suppressed
it with drinking
copious quantities of champagne cocktails whilst soaking in the
warm spa......
From
Wollongong to the Tamworth Country Music Festival, two concerts
there,
both extremely well attended and received. And it didn’t
rain. I took the opportunity
to take a photo of John standing by Tamworth’s Big Golden
Guitar, just to give you some sort of idea of the scale of the
thing. We’re into “BIG” things in Australia..
Smaller versions are handed out to the actual Gold Guitar winners,
the cream of Australia’s Country Music musicians. Needless
to say John and I don’t have any
gold guitar awards. But the rapt and happy faces of our audiences
were enough
reward for us. That and very satisfying CD sales.
Talking
of “BIG” things, when John and I were driving to Wollongong
we passed through the pretty little town of Robertson in NSW,
which is famous, amongst
other things, of being the home of the Big Potato, otherwise known
locally as
The Big Turd. Why is that I hear you ask? The following photo
should explain all.
Again I got John to stand beside it to give a sense of scale.....
I
could put a smart-arsed comment with this photo, but I will refrain........
Then at the end of February we flew to Tasmania for a concerts
in Bicheno,
Launceston and Hobart. Tasmania is a beautiful island, and it’s
always a pleasure
going there. I first went there in 1972 on my honeymoon with Carmel
the
Magnificent, but nonetheless I’ve always had a soft spot
for the place....while
we were in Bicheno we stayed with David and Jenni Logie, old friends
of mine,
that’s one of the bonuses of this job, often it gives you
a chance to catch up with
old friends when you are on your travels. I also caught up with
other friends, and
my honorary niece, Susan Farrell, a shy, quiet little Dublin lass,who
is the
Entertainment Supremo of Federal Casinos, and who organised our
gigs for us,
many thanks Susan.
From
Hobart we flew to Melbourne to do a concert at the Brunswick Festival,
always a favourite gig of ours, and this time was no exception.
The concert was
sold out, in fact it was one of the fastest selling concerts in
the history of the festival,
or so we were told.The festival has been run from its inception
by a mate of mine,
John MacAuslan. John is originally from South Queensferry in Scotland,
but has managed to rise above that inauspicious start, and now
runs one of Australia’s
best music festivals. The festival struggled a bit at the start,
but now is very
successful, mainly thanks to John’s tireless efforts, and
it’s good to see. A couple
of local gigs then followed, one at Frances in South Australia,
a very unique festival,
it’s free and most of the music is provided by the people
who attend the festival,
it’s one big music jam really. It’s proved very popular
and next year celebrates
it’s 10th anniversary. Then John and I did a concert at
the Murraylands Music festival,
a little community music festival in Tailem Bend in South Australia.
I love these
local gigs, don’t have to travel too far........
And,
to date, that’s about it as far as the music goes. I’m
still in reasonably good
health considering my questionable diet and personal habits, and
fill in my spare
time by walking the dogs every day, listening to a bit of music,
and giving Carmel gratuitious and apparently annoying advice as
she’s toiling in the garden. At present she’s building
‘The Great Wall of Carmel’, a drystone wall which
will eventually be
about 50 metres in length. So far she’s done about 30 metres.
A photo follows.......
As
we say in Scotland “Aye, she’s a hard-workin’
wee wumman...”
I’ve
received quite a few e-mails from folks in the USA asking me when
I’ll be
touring there again. Well, unfortunately, the answer is probably
never. And not
because I don’t want to I hasten to add, I’ve enjoyed
every tour I’ve ever done
there. But changes by the INS service in America have made it
extremely difficult
and expensive for musicians at my level to obtain a work visa.
Previously my
agent in America could apply for a visa on my behalf, and to date
the visa was
always granted. Now, however, to obtain a visa I have to go through
a visa
attorney or a visa processing firm, my agent can’t apply
on my behalf any longer.
This option is very expensive, and with no guarantee that a visa
would be granted. Also, the U.S. Congress has slashed the number
of H1 visas to be issued every
year, and now unless you apply well over a year in advance of
any proposed tours, your chances are virtually nil. It’s
all too hard now, too much hassle, so that’s that I’m
afraid. I had hoped to do my (probably) farewell tour of the USA
this year, but it
looks like I actually did it in 2005. I blame Osama Bin Laden
mostly........and
George of course.
However,
Canada still has reasonable requirements as far as work visas
are concerned, so John and I are still heading over there in November/December
to
do a tour with John McDermott. I’ve posted the towns we’ll
be playing in and the
dates on my concert schedule page, but if you want to know more
information
regarding venues, times, etc. you’ll have to check out John
McDermott’s web-site,
go to my links page.
John
and I will also be doing a small tour of Western Australia in
June, I’ve posted
the dates and venues on my concert schedule. I intend to spend
the winter mostly writing songs hopefully, and perhaps recording
a new CD if the song writing goes
well. At the moment I’ve only got four new songs in the
bank, but I’ve got lots of
ideas. Any free time I’ve got left after that I’ll
be house renovating of course, my counselling sessions have not
worked.............
Next
year will be the farewell tour of Europe, more specifically the
UK. At this stage
we are planning to be on tour there from June through to September.
The last
concert of the tour has already been booked, in my home town of
Peebles on the
10th of September. There’s a nice symmetry to that I think,
the last concert of the
last tour back where it all started for me.
As
you have probably gathered by now, I’m sort of planning
my retirement, or
rather, stumbling towards it. It will be a semi-retirement I think,
this music business
tends to retire you rather than the other way around, and so far
the phone keeps
ringing. But I’m definitely stopping the 3/4 month marathon
overseas tours, at my
age the batteries don’t recharge as well as they used to.
Still will do a fair bit of
work in Australia I hope, and some selected work overseas perhaps,
but I won’t
be gadding about like I used to.There’s a time to gad and
a time to sit on your
arse watching your wife dig up the garden, and I’m rapidly
reaching that stage.
As you can see from the following photo, the pressure of coming
up with hit song
after hit song is intense, and I think I’m beginning to
unravel.
And that’s all folks. Hope you and yours are all healthy
and happy and I’ll try and
blurb you again in a few months and let you know how the song
writing/possible
CD is coming along.
Vaya
Con Dios
Ricky
