and now the news...

Jerry Jeff 

I’ve spent some time up in Arthurs Pass over the years, working, playing, adventuring, singing, writing, walking, hoping, praying, believing, drinking, chopping, sitting, cleaning. First eastern gig out of chch was there, second album recorded there, gathered some stories, some I’ll tell forever and some I’ll never breath a word. You never feed the keas but its nice to see them getting all curious at you. Smartest biggest parrot in the world I heard once. One season of writing one particularly big and bold parrot came strolling through the open door of the cabin and walked around and eyeballed me then walked out. He ended up doing the same thing every day, so much so I figured he was there to make sure the business of song writing was the only business getting done, cause any other business you do that isn’t the business of song writing is only bound to fuck upn your head and your heart. So I kept it 100 and the kea caused me no bother, in and out, check it out, simple as. I called him Jerry Jeff for one of the gods and our friendship has stuck firm to this very day. So much so most Kea I see I call Jerry Jeff, praying it’s the same ol’ guy. He had an eye not to be fucked with and as he was a creature that could take your eye anytime he wanted that was a pretty sound course of action, so I take ‘ol Jerry Jeff seriously and try and keep the song writing up in my head and the business somewhere else entirely, often to my detriment.

One time me ol’ dog diesel went running at a gang of kea sitting on some river rocks, he bolted straight at em, within seconds they were in the air and gunning for him, so he turned tale and they chased him back in to the truck.

“Messing with Jerry Jeff, is not the kind of business you want to get into dog”

I took his silence as agreement.

Anyways I was playing down in okarito last Friday night and Jerry Jeff and a pal showed up and started sounding off on the roof of the place, obeying the 5th commandment of folk club THOU MUST SING ALONG.

It was good to hear, I don’t know if Jerry Jeff will make it up to Taupo next week at the Acacia Bay Hall, nor to GRRUNK Fest the next day, nor to our Xmas Xtravaganza (now with Xtra Tess Liautaud and C-City blues queens, The Blues Mamas featuring Izzy Miller Bell and Susan Leigh Grant) on xmas eve, but he might and if he doesn’t I’m sure y’all’ll be in fine lung.

You can get tickets for everything at www.adammcgrath.net/shows

Ps

After about two years since its release, against all odds Dear Companions is finally up on all streaming things, all the income raised from such gos straight to our dear late record father and Brother Paul Huggins family, so you better go stream that shit quarter of million times each! A day! Or not its all good.

Keep Faith, Viva Paul and Viva Jerry Jeff and Viva You!

more western 

What the goddamn hell? two posts in two days...this what a few months of gentle rising will do for your 38th favourite folk singers dough head brain!...fighting fit we're raising all flags...just not a white one!
as well as our pay what you want Christmas show and toy drive announced last night, the kinda hits that you might hear on the under under card of a back bar boxing side show keep coming!
so yeah tonight we say hello...
TAUPO!
McGrath solo all yarns blazing! at the Acacia Bay Hall. If memory serves me right Acacia Bay was the first place The Eastern ever played in Taupo in 2007/8. After the gig this fella comes up and says, "I came because I thought it was going to be middle eastern music. You're um more western. Still quite good, quite good."
We'll take em where we get em!
as ever thanks so much to Bryan from Bitter FM for keeping the faith after all these long years!
so...
Adam McGrath Solo
Acacia Bay Hall
Taupo
Dec. 5th
tix for our xmas extravaganza there too!

xmas xtravangzasmas 

I n what will promise to be a new yearly event (bi decade at least!) your brothers and sisters in the eastern are going looking for your toys to go and deliver on xmas day! join us! bring a toy! entry by toy and new fangled pay what you want or can ticket!
make sense! I dunno! but we hope to get toys! lots of them! we've done this before and its always been great! so we have hopes! we're gonna have all sorts of interesting guests showing up and strutting on the stage! what line up of the eastern will it be? god knows but it's gonna be a hooley!
come join us!
tickets at:

ol' dungers 

Like two old dungers rolling down a stock car track waiting for the inevitable smash, yer boy McGrath and his ol' road buddy Lindon Puffin are up for another round, punch drunk and ready to mix a million metaphors in the 16 minute stories between the songs, these two 'legacy' artists won't seem to lie down for nothing!...
with a little life left in the old Levis they ready to get up and get down this Sunday at the venerable CHCH Folk Music Club, considering Lindon got banned from the Canterbury folk festival nearly twenty years ago for leading some young dudes on a hell raising hair raising mission of hi wins and hoodwinks this will prove to be something of a redemption song.
McGrath has a bunch of new songs to get warmed up for an upcoming record and there'll be the usual bikkies and cake and coffee at half time!
is there nothing the folk club can't offer!
this sunday night doors at 7pm

The Easybeats 

I sat at the table and learned friday on my mind by the easybeats, it was 3am, I sounded awesome.
I played it again in the day time, this time loud as my neighbours were awake at work whatever. I sounded terrible.
I learnt it because I thought itd be great to play in melbourne next friday night when I play at the merri creek tavern.
I'm not so sure, but the gig will be great, it'll be my first time in oz since before the great coughing, we used to have an audience there, its been so long now maybe not, but thats never phased me, whether windmill or army i will tilt because the tilting must be done, because I am a tilter.
If you or youres are that side of the ocean, come and see what Ive been up to. I'm much the same, maybe slower, maybe older, maybe more sober, maybe wiser, but none of these things can be guaranteed.
you may ask yourself how am I playing in melbourne when I'm playing hastings the night after and auckland the night before?
I use the star of jets, the air of new zealand and the madness of tilters curse.
info about those shows soon!
but for now I need to tell you about melbourne and the merri creek tavern and the easybeats.
details here:

The Songs 

shows and shows and more shows and more shows done and more to come, no retreat no surrender, we made a promise we swore we'd always remember etc.
This week its nelson/mapua at an ol' haunt, to go haunting again, at the playhouse, see nick and manu, sit backstage and get ready and eat some pizza, meet some soldiers on the front lines at the libaries or the schools or the hopsitals, theres always someone at the playhouse fighting the good fight, they seem happy that I've got a couple of songs in the canon/cannon about their concerns, it feels good to sing for them and be inspired by them. I'll also have the drinking songs, the train songs, the fight songs, the hope songs, the odd cowboy song, the go slow songs, the stand on the table songs, the keep the faith songs, the faith's got rocked songs, the hang in there songs, the fuck em songs, the I'm sorry songs, the don't quit songs, the take this job and shove it songs, the irish songs, the punk songs, the soul songs, the papanui songs,, the south island via the north island and down to stewart island songs, the get the money songs, the give the money songs, the talking blues songs, the backwards country songs, the love everlasting songs, and maybe a few more besides. I'm always glad to sing em for you!
tickets:

The Time before time 

There was a time before the internet, before the personal computer, before the electric typewriter, before writers, before types, before the sun, before fire, before the scrawling of ink on the walls of caves, before it all. It is in this time whereupon The Eastern first played in Auckland, we were younger, fitter, stronger, neither Jess Shanks or I needed reading glasses.
We were in a whirlwind, we played at the kings arms, we played on juice tv, we played in a park, and we played at the Wine Cellar and we met Rohan. He who runs the joint, he who mans the faders, he who moves the couches, he who, he who always has, he who has made the space for so many and kept the faith for longer than was ever necessary.
We thought we would snowball Auckland, we were not afraid of the big city, it was where the buttons were pressed, where the moves were made and where the shakes got shaking, we had seen our comrades drawn like moths to its flame but we were not of that kind, we were raiders, pirates, commandos, airborne, saboteurs, get in do the songs and get out without too much glad handing and desperation. Sadly/happily most of just about everyone we met was nice, and supportive and hopeful, and wanting to help us with whatever it was we needed, but pirates and wild wonky horses can never stay inside for too long, so our operations were always brief, always too long between drinks, always under promoted (by us), always a little to little to late. Ultimately that was just fine and just how we were and just how we are and In a way the exact way we needed to go to keep on.
But the memories stir, of the shows and songs and drinks and times and the fact that we are mostly all still standing.
Rohan and the wine cellar are always at the heart of that kind of remembering,
Its gonna change soon, the wine cellar that is, become part of the whammy bar, for all the good reasons things change and grow and that’s just fine and Rohan will still be around, and I guess me and The Eastern will be too in some fashion, but one last time, one last round at the old haunt will suit me just fine, so here I come, this weekend, under promoted, over caffeinated, under the stairs and over the goddamn rainbow.
Rohan will be there and Ill bring the songs and the stories…
Thankyou big city, thankyou rohan, thankyou wine cellar, thankyou time,
Thankyou if you get a ticket….

The Hunter 

Tonight I’m playing with one of the the best to ever do it, Al
Hunter, in his home town of Woodstock just east of Hokitika, in one of the best homes for
The song in the country,
The Woodstock hotel.
It couldn’t be much better for me, or hopefully for you if you can make it. We’ll be in the round song for song, and his son, the secret weapon, the young prince Jordan the terminator hunter will be on stage with us, playing guitar like you wouldn’t believe.
But you will come to believe because they’re both something to believe! I’ll be trying my hardest to keep up!

The Wizard 

They called him hedge,
On the surface cause he was wild and wooly?
But maybe it was like how they call me blue because I had red hair? Where the opposite is true?
Because redwood or mountain or moon would be too ostentatious.
But any of those would have fit, the small man playing the tiny mandolin but casting the biggest shadow, carrying the longest history, the deepest roots, the most gigs, the truest vision.
He was a mentor to so many who’ve tried stages in this big town, little city.
And the same to enough of members of the eastern, for us to feel at times like a little brother band.
The barlands are unforgiving, but Ian strode them like a giant, like a warrior, like a wizard.
We honor him and his music and his faith and for the years and for the work and for the craic.
May his road forever rise.
Brendan sung this for Ian on Monday, sing it in your hearts today,

The minstrel boy to the war is gone
In the ranks of death you'll find him
His father's sword he hath girded on
And his wild harp slung behind him
"Land of Song" cried the warrior bard
"Tho' all the world betrays thee
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard
One faithful harp shall praise thee"
The minstrel fell but the foeman's chain
Could not bring that proud soul under
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again
For he tore its chords asunder
And said, "No chains shall sully thee
Thou soul of love and brav'ry
Thy songs were made for the pure and free
They shall never sound in slavery"

Rest easy wizard

The Winner 

Christchurch industries fair, 1982
Adam McGrath wins a trumpet for dancing like Elvis Presley in a children’s talent quest, starting an addiction to trumpets and a desperate need for approval followed by a desperate sense of embarrassment.
Breens Intermediate, 1989
Adam McGrath and his friend Jason Walker win a nationwide rap competition by composing extra verses to the ‘kick it in the butt’ smoke free ad campaign.
They both win White ghetto blasters with dynamic bass boost and x3 graphic equalizers.
They also rip off the first vs of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s ‘The Message’ but no one seems to notice, regardless they feel it is their dual beatboxing that wins the day.
Marist Western Suburbs Rugby League Club Rooms, 1990-1995
Adam Wins Player of the year, sportsman of the year and team man over this period.
He trades on this for the rest of his life.
Here inexplicably the winning stops…
Until…
Last Thursday,
When he wins Folk Artist of the Year at the AMA’s.
How about that his friend Joe Kelly says,
How about that indeed.
And thus, his writing in the third person ceases to be interesting so I stop it and I say
Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou
And I am humbled and grateful and also sad that the three-hour speech I prepared in case I won was all forgotten in the interests of brevity.
But if you’ve been in my corner for any of these long-gone times, present moments or are waiting for me up the way then I can’t tell you how much you mean to me.
I’m sorry when I fuck up and stumble and am late or behind and I’m so full of thanks for you for sticking around!
I’ve written the names of Lindon Puffin and The Eastern and more on the award, in sharpie and biro and Ive made it look less an award than a high school project but what it really is now is some sort of spirit rod and incantation to remind me of all the people who have been on my side.
Tom Lark and the Terrible Sons were worthy nominees and I’m grateful to share the spirit with them too.
I’m grateful to the folk community and the festivals that have always taken a chance on me and my roundabout ways.
Especially to the Dunedin and Canterbury Folk Clubs for letting me and the Eastern through the door.
The Madills and Madill Guitars and Peter Stephens and Martin Guitars for the tools and not shaking their heads to much.
This award is everybody’s it’s just my name on it till next year I guess, but If I could I’d throw it up into the air, past the moon and up and up and up and into the way beyond to the great record store in the sky for my friend Paul Huggins for always believing in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
The Folk Singing continues ever onwards, this weekend in Picton
Then okarito, then Hokitika, then wellington, then Auckland, then nelson, then everywhere else you can get the tickets at www.adammcgrath.net/shows
Can’t sleep now drive on drive on drive on
Thankyou thankyou thankyou