dispatches

Lets get small 

I move through the world uncomfortably, too big not to bang my head, break the chair, squeeze between the tables, knees to chin, chin to knees, slumping to get little to not make a scene, 6’4 4000kgs of pure pizza, I drag my frame through airports and cars and queues and bars often uncomfortably.
The big cities though make you feel small but you have to have your ambitions hulk size rather than your fears to stand out. My ambitions are enough to get me out the door no more and in acuallity mostly spites disguised as something else. Mostly spites against my self though my fears bigger than both of us, but like ol’ blue eyes sang ‘High Hopes’ baby high hopes.
But small is good for the soul, small keeps your feet right where they need to be, small is good to start a conversation without too much in the way, small is just roomy enough to let the work happen without too much drama. Tomorrow I’ll walk around Auckland and get that small feeling, but like I said a few thousand of your precious minutes ago, in a post or two back, I’ll be singing the big songs, not big in sales or hits but big in hopes and hand ups. That’s the idea, without a setlist it could all just be cold chisel covers, I dunno whats gonna happen, but I’ll be in Auckland at the tuning fork trying to get as small and as big as I can.
A duality! Two opposing forces fighting in bag full of schrodinger’s cats man it’ll be a racket but hopefully one worth your psychic time!
Kendall Elise on first makes it worth the ticket price as well!
Big city! Big Posts!
Amen

The dark Art 

Ticketing is a dark art…
First it starts with a pre release ticket deal for spark or vodafone subscribers or maybe even visa, you take your rebel soul and you subsume it in desperation, you reward the customers of these beastly entities, if you’re lucky you might get into some ‘partnership’ to curate an ‘experience’
workers sell their labour you sell your magic, everyone is selling, buying and selling and selling and buying, everything is fair game, everything is reduced to a commodity, the real commodity though is bamboozling contracts, which by proxy you are now promoting; via songs you wrote in your room about your feelings. These contracts are now part of you and via you out there sucking souls, hurting heads, requiring 16 years of algebraic learning to make hide or hair,
“If we move you from the friends plan via the mates plan over to the team plan then you’ll get 16gbs of full speed minus 30gb of half time night time minutes locked in for 36 month over a 16 month no return break out party clause”
And then once you’ve exhausted that, you start on the early bird, pre release, get in quick limited before they’re even been numbered tickets,
And then so on and so on until the last minute just released seats deals etc
What I want to know who has these seats? How can we negotiate their release? Are they political prisioners?
Why are they viciously trapped in the same way a solo parent might be into a predatory phone contract?
Whats going on?
Is this shamanism?
Hustlism?
Capitialism?
Its all beyond my pay grade
but c'mon you rock n rollers
FREE THE SEATS
After all that though, the artist might reach the holy highs, the HOLY GRAIL of the rock n roll fleece “progressive pricing”,
SEE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SING SONGS ABOUT WORKING PEOPLE TO FRONT ROWS FULL OF RICH PEOPLE JUST $3000 A TICKET
Phew its hard out there,
Especially for the journeyman folk singers
Our 1 ticket-one seat-one price-sell em all or none at all-philosophy is not catching on,
my no ticket under our control more than an hour and half of minimum wage plan, has not caught fire,
The promoters are not knocking down my door, the deafening applause of the public has been drowned out by the sound of crickets and an empty room,
I turn to my side kicks in the eastern and they form like an army of Sancho Panzas and say another windmill boss?
I adjust my lance and my armour and say,
“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
Except I don’t say that Cervantes said that, I simply say
My low rent tickets for my show Auckland this Thursday the 18th are ALL for sale at low low prices at the shows tab
Ps
I’m not complaining! Not even pontificating! Just joculating! Which I hope means joking!
I’m the luckiest folk singer on my street and we’ve had some great houses these past weeks and I’m thrilled
Invercargill
Dunedin
Lyttelton
Taupo
Napier
Gisborne
All went off as they say, and my landlord and my spark bill salute your ticket buying prowess!
Thankyou friends!

The dark Art 

Ticketing is a dark art…
First it starts with a pre release ticket deal for spark or vodafone subscribers or maybe even visa, you take your rebel soul and you subsume it in desperation, you reward the customers of these beastly entities, if you’re lucky you might get into some ‘partnership’ to curate an ‘experience’
workers sell their labour you sell your magic, everyone is selling, buying and selling and selling and buying, everything is fair game, everything is reduced to a commodity, the real commodity though is bamboozling contracts, which by proxy you are now promoting; via songs you wrote in your room about your feelings. These contracts are now part of you and via you out there sucking souls, hurting heads, requiring 16 years of algebraic learning to make hide or hair,
“If we move you from the friends plan via the mates plan over to the team plan then you’ll get 16gbs of full speed minus 30gb of half time night time minutes locked in for 36 month over a 16 month no return break out party clause”
And then once you’ve exhausted that, you start on the early bird, pre release, get in quick limited before they’re even been numbered tickets,
And then so on and so on until the last minute just released seats deals etc
What I want to know who has these seats? How can we negotiate their release? Are they political prisioners?
Why are they viciously trapped in the same way a solo parent might be into a predatory phone contract?
Whats going on?
Is this shamanism?
Hustlism?
Capitialism?
Its all beyond my pay grade
but c'mon you rock n rollers
FREE THE SEATS
After all that though, the artist might reach the holy highs, the HOLY GRAIL of the rock n roll fleece “progressive pricing”,
SEE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SING SONGS ABOUT WORKING PEOPLE TO FRONT ROWS FULL OF RICH PEOPLE JUST $3000 A TICKET
Phew its hard out there,
Especially for the journeyman folk singers
Our 1 ticket-one seat-one price-sell em all or none at all-philosophy is not catching on,
my no ticket under our control more than an hour and half of minimum wage plan, has not caught fire,
The promoters are not knocking down my door, the deafening applause of the public has been drowned out by the sound of crickets and an empty room,
I turn to my side kicks in the eastern and they form like an army of Sancho Panzas and say another windmill boss?
I adjust my lance and my armour and say,
“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
Except I don’t say that Cervantes said that, I simply say
My low rent tickets for my show Auckland this Thursday the 18th are ALL for sale at low low prices at the shows tab
Ps
I’m not complaining! Not even pontificating! Just joculating! Which I hope means joking!
I’m the luckiest folk singer on my street and we’ve had some great houses these past weeks and I’m thrilled
Invercargill
Dunedin
Lyttelton
Taupo
Napier
Gisborne
All went off as they say, and my landlord and my spark bill salute your ticket buying prowess!
Thankyou friends!

The Hours 

36 hours of driving for 6 hours of playing? these are the goddamn statistics we like! backwards, inordinate, immoderate, inconceivably backward, we could just pull out the drive at drive around the block 11,000 times and throw money out the window and get someone to throw you a ham sandwich and some pinapple lumps every 3 hours and maybe install an IV for some road coffee and just tick up your wildbean cafe card and it'd probably all amount to the same thing butttttt then we'd never get to meet y'all, new friends and old, dancers, singers, sitters, chancers, in for a good time, in for a heart time, in for a story, in for a yee ha, in for a penny in for a pound of fleash, whatever it is it makes it so worthwhile to show up for y'all as you continue to show up for us. All these years, all these hours, all these times, all these bad ideas, all these good intentions and here we both are us and you and right in the middle of the set, just before the guitar strings break, just before we say fuck it and get on the floor with you, it all starts to make a weird kind of sense! and therefore proving our proviso, that if weird is the way most taken, then gifts will be the things most given. So good to be out there with the band! so good to be out there with you good good souls. Next week though, the truck stays parked and me, ol' long talking fool that I am, goes north to shout from the big stage about the new quiet Album Dear Companions at the tuning fork! Hoping the vinyl will be here by then! big hoping! but even if it aint' the good strong wonder of Kendall Elise will be there to open the show which I'm sure will make up for it!
c'mon on now!
Auckland! Next thursday! 7.30pm! The Tuning Fork!
tickets at the shows page

Sit in it... 

If only you could sit in the big show for a while, just call it quits and revel in the good feelings and tshirt sales on some eternal loop of wonder and peace. Because friday in port was like that, and dunedin and invercargill and wellington before that. Man!
Well it seems like a good idea when you breaking yourself out of bed to make the ferry for the next one, but it isnt, cause the big wheel refuses to stop and the stick in the mill is gonna get snapped. So we drive on, ready for the next tough show and then the next good one and then so on, etc, repeat, adinfinitum. Maybe till we run out of songs? maybe till we run out of ticket sales? maybe till the knees become knubs?
Regardless, I’ll put the solo shows in the pack for a week and feel them Eastern engines get to warming, and whirring and burning and roaring. We’re making up some covid slowed dates, a million months after when they should’ve been, but feels good to be out in it with the pals doing that thing we made up for ourselves so many million moons back there. Come hang, pre sales put our anxieties in the box but if we wanted no anxiety we should’ve stayed at home, we’ll take what we get as ever and get it done like we were never gonna do anything else!
Tomorrow Night
Taupo, Muesem
Friday
Napier, The Cabana w/ Devils Elbow
Saturday
Gisborne, The Dome w/ Eliot Witters
The Solo shows start up in Auckland at the tuning fork
May 18th

Saints are comin' 

I was feeling pretty shaky, a bit worn out and a bit beat from the rock going up hill and down, but I ended up at the club rooms and the sheds below and it got me thinking.
We’d walk in there half the Saturdays of every season, scrabbling, pushing, piss taking, boots on the shoulder, bags on the back. Inside something magic would happen, wild unfocussed boys being drawn in together, hierarchies of smarts and strength subsumed, power building, hope growing, we could listen, we could hear, we were in the moment, believing in each other, believing our coach when he would say we had something we could prove and we could help each other and we could trust each other and the only thing that mattered was that we committed, to the boys on either side, to the tackle, to the hit up, to the game.
No one remembers that we lost more than we won cause that was never the point we were just in it as best we could, for something to do but mostly for something and somewhere to be. A lot of the boys muddled and stressed in their real life, wonky parents, wonkier futures and yet here we were, being given a chance and some attention from some of the soundest grown ups I’ve ever known. Ones that might call you a fuckwit when you were a fuckwit but also ones that’d come and get you when the lights were going out literally and figuratively.
As I said I went down to the clubrooms today, old Lee Nelson let me in and we talked that the club was closing down, no more teams, not enough kids, demographics, economics, fears of the big hit’s. But he had some yarns and some laughs and it meant the world to grasp a little of the rarefied air before it’s all gone.
I’ve met a lot of folks in the creative fields with not much interest in sport, full contact ones especially and that’s ok but I know it saved a lot of lives and shaped so many more or gave respite, connection, community and offered a lot of wayward young dudes some real things of value and great worth and every now and then as ol’ Lee Nelson reminded me, the piss ups and the punch ups made for some pretty funny stories.
The latter you get to talk about forever and maybe a bit of a smoke screen for the former, that you didn’t need to talk about because its inside you like a ballast keeping you upright when it all looks shaky.
Thanks to Lee, thanks to the ol’ Saints, thanks to y’all for reading this far and coming to the show tomorrow! The tickets are on their last legs and that feels good so jump on ‘em if you haven’t yet, there’ll be a smattering of door sales but not many.
The band is tight and loose in all the right places (oh yeah did I say we had a band tomorrow? Yeah! We wanted to give these new songs a good honouring!) and spirits are high…so yeah so yeah so yeah tomorrow we’ll be honouring those spirits, hopefully your spirit, the spirits of all them old saints and everything else!
Thank you Thank you Thank you
For doing the yards with me!
Tomorrow night!
Tix:
Lyttelton Arts Factory doors 8pm music 8.30pm
Ps
Taupo
Gisborne
Napier
Auckland
You’re next!

Station Z 

that was a time, z station after z station and some big clear sky and some cold strong winds and just enough rain to keep me honest. Listened to houses of the holy, physical graffiti and coda all in one hit, man that Bonzo was something else. Blew my voice out singing top lung and bottom to trampled underfoot but it came right by the time I got to Dee St. in invercargill, the boy racers were reving hard and every now and then the imports sounded a bit like their grandads' holdens might of when them engines go banging off the shop walls, and then you hear a Holden and think oh yeah maybe not, but tradition moves as much with technology as it does against it. The shows were great full rooms, kind audiences and lost uncles and old chums and mentors and new ones all showed up for me and it means as much as it ever does and considering the rapid waning of the traditions I hope to represent, maybe it means even more? Big questions, but big questions don't stand up to big skies or big engines or big weird dreams so amen to all those and I'll leave the questions to st peter come the big reckoning and the biggest one of all when he puts it on me and says "What do ya reckon?" I'll come clean and say "That Pete is beyond my pay grade but I did my best as much as I did my worst". Hopefully he'll say "You think you're a clever bastard eh?" and then laugh and sneak me in the back way through fiddlers green.
A boy can hope right?
Anyways we go hoping again this friday! the home town show in the old home town, in a venue built on all the good spirits, that feels pretty good to me! tickets are moving so jump on them if you're able.
Friday 28th Lyttelton Arts Factory 8pm
The ticket price should come in no more than an hour and half of minimum wage, but times being what they are if that feels tight just drop us a line.
you can get the tickets at www.adammcgrath.net/shows
as ever forever (or at east until I forget to pay the website bill!)
from my path to yours
peace

Now Form a Band 

I take this creative writing class in high school. The Class is filled with bookish sensitive smart funny people and one maniac psycho rugby league playing sometime bully trauma filled totally confused giant who is a year older than everyone else. That would be me.
Despite all the above adjectives, the teacher finds me endearing and seems to believe in me a little; this is a rarity, but makes me behave.
I see this guy in the class always has tapes, I tell him we need to trade them, because of the above adjectives he doesn’t argue but you can tell he is suspicious. Months go by slowly in an everlasting swirl of angst, rage, adventure and weed. The Holidays rise up, I say to the guy with the tapes,
“What are you doing in the holidays?”
He says “Just band practice”
“You’re in a band?” I’m a bit shocked, there is very little rock n roll that I can see to this kid.
“Yeah”
“What kind of music do you play?”
“We’re um ah um a punk band”
What the absolute fuck I think, this does not fit the picture and how come THIS GUY! And not ME GUY is in a punk band? I have a black flag logo on my bag for god’s sake.
I ask him who the singer is?
He says “um we don’t have one”
I pause for a minute, “I’m your new singer”.
I used the power of the above adjectives to cement my position without argument. There was a sense of stress within my new bandmate about how he was gonna tell the other bandmates that this maniac psycho rugby league playing sometime bully trauma filled totally confused giant who is a year older than everyone else was now the lead singer of their band.
That was his problem. My problem was where to find a godamn microphone and amp.
I sold weed to this other kid who had these things (or at least his dad did and that was good enough). He wasn’t stoked about lending it to me so I told him he could be in the band too. He was good looking, popular, a surfer, with abs and he had an amp. He would be an excellent counterpoint to the bookish guys and the maniac psycho guy.
We were, as they say, away.
The first show I ever got to do out of town was with these kids in Dunedin on tour with the great NOTHING AT ALL who for their short moment were the greatest band in New Zealand.
We played an instore on our own at this record store called fire engine and I have a great photo of our guitar player with this fifty-foot lead playing outside the door and this older lady dressed like the queen with her hands in her ears.
I have done maybe 2000 shows since then and not a single one has been better than that.
Now I sing the folk music I don’t have to pull the maniac psycho card too often, but I’m sure there’s still plenty of folks with their hands in their ears.
Those guys I played music with back there started pretty wary of me and they weren’t to be blamed for that at all, I deserved it, but like the teacher in creative writing ( viva Ms. McColl!) they eventually starting believing me and it helped me so much! I don’t really know where all those guys are but they showed me so much about songs and the chances we all were taking mean so much right now in the here in now!
The Dunedin Folk Club were a bit like that with me and The Eastern, it would be fair to say we felt not quite in the folk mix when we started, being weak of technique, devoid of connections and any control of the volume level. But man, we wanted to be down so hard. Eventually we figured out the walls were just our own making and folk folk just want to make sure you’re not chocka full of bullshit. But before we figured out how to tunnel under our insecurities and before we figured out how to disguise we were all chocka full of bullshit. The Dunedin Folkies saw something in us and me, enough to let us keep showing up.
It has always meant the best.
So, showing up with me most folk singing record this Sunday feels a little like a homecoming. I’ll be doing the folk singing and telling the stories for anyone who’ll care to listen, and I’m not here to strong arm you into buying tickets like I did to get into that band way back when, I’m just here to tell you about it. So, if you’re recovering after feastock, a friend of the folk music then I’d be grateful to see you.
The night before I’m in Invercargill! Not for the first time but for the first time at the Black Shag Café! And the best news is that its right next to a new record store! Threes and Sevens Records! And its record store day! And they have music all day until I show up at 7.30pm (there’s a joke in there somewhere)
One good thing about being a folk singer is you don’t need a fifty-foot lead to get out the door, so who knows where we’ll end up. Bring your fingers to stick in your friends’ ears when they go “Who the hell does this guy think he is?”
And simply say “one maniac psycho rugby league playing sometime bully trauma filled totally confused giant who is a year older than everyone else…doing his best getting born every day.”
Tickets for everything from:
as well as
chch Lyttelton arts factory Apr. 28th
taupo museum may 4th (The Eastern)
Napier Cabana may 5th (The Eastern)
Gisborne the dome may 6th (The Eastern)
Auckland the Tuning Fork may 18th

little big show 

 

the big man with the small following returns to the big city to take on the big room with the small songs filled with the big hope trying to follow and fill big shoes with his small talents but big/little (TBC) ego playing a big guitar with big chords but only a small number of them, it's a little flight in a big plane flying through a big sky rolling the dice at big things but managing his little expectations. Thats Right Auckland!
MAY 18!!!!
Dukes Up I'm comin' in swinging (watch me trip on the steps to the stage).
with special magical power guest Kendall Elise!
plus tickets available for
Invercargill Sat 22
Dunedin Sun 23
CHCH april 28
Taupo May 4 (The Eastern)
Napier May 5 (The Eastern)
Gisborne May 6 (The Eastern)
there too!
Plus some kind reviews of Dear Companions:
and
PS
VINYL INCOMING (phew)

They Come in 3's boys 

The good luck comes in threes,

the bad luck too

the inevitability of death and life

the inevitability of the folk singer and his unending search for the longest possible story between the song

the inevitability of one last minute hail mary face book post

the ying yang the chicken the egg the hope the wire the distance inbetween

what am I on about?

who knows?! who cares?! 

I'm listening to W.A.S.P. and reflecting on how the image of lead singer Blackie Lawless drinking Blood from a Skull on the front cover of my binder had literally no effect on my teacher Mr Blair. I guess then I knew shock rock and hooky power metal would not be my path. If I was to win over Mr Blair it would take more than gimmicks! It would take lyrics! and going for the long game...no quick and easy platinum records for this guy, no no no Mr Blair wouldn't want a flash in the pan! he's want the good long grease fire and the burnt curtains at the end, Mr Blair would want me to commit! and Commit I shall and commit I have and I will not quit until Mr Blair says I've won him over! 

After the wonderous heart and soul y'all offered me in the Wellington on thursday I take that faith fuel and turn in a 360 to home and parts south...

today I announce!!!!!!

I will be in Invercargill Saturday Week at the Black Shag Boutique Cafe! theres a record store right next door what could be finer!

April 22

then in Dunedin!

April 23

Then in CHCH!!!!!

April

then then then

in Taupo and in Napier and in Gisborne with The Eastern and then there will be more and more and more!

Because as Blackie Lawless Says "I wanna be somebody" even if that somebody is your 39th favourite folk singer and as Mr Blair said "You just have to shut up and focus Adam"

tickets at the shows tab

as ever!