Brisbane
Brisbane is a cool little city, very easy to navigate and figure things out, if you really wanted to, you could walk across the city in a few hours. Likewise the music scene is centred mainly around one area, Brunswick st in The Valley, kind of like Camden, Shoreditch and Leicester square all rolled into one, but all quite happily coexisting. Music genres seem to fit mainly into two categories, Hardcore Punk and mellow, tuneful acts, so with Abdoujaparov and myself not really fitting into either of those categories, it was going to be hard work.

28/10 @ Ric's Bar
An afternoon show, entitled ‘The Cheeseboard’, it was

possibly a little too early for a gig and the room was half full with friends and friends of friends. It was my first solo show for a while, I felt strangely nervous and stupidly decided to try a load of new material which didn’t work particularly well, struggled through it though and sold a few CD’s so it can’t have been that bad.

28/10 @ The Jubilee Hotel
Chris Chinchilla plays 4 songs sandwiched between four hardcore bands was always going to be a tough gig, and suffice it to say I felt uncomfortable, awkward and at several points like pulling out. Instead, I took to the stage in an aggressive mood, ready to prove a point, cranked up the amp a little and put a lot of balls into it and in the end the show went down fairly well, had a good chat to a few people after the set, including a girl who had a great badge “Hugs not Drugs”, my sentiments exactly.

01/11 @ FBi (Radio session)
After nearly missing my flight, to then discover that I had booked the wrong flight and finally arriving at the radio station half an hour late, I was a little stressed out. Fortunately all the staff and presenters (The Wonderfully entitled Peach and Shag) were extremely helpful and friendly

so helped me prepare for the interview and session. It was a little improvised as they mic’d up my electric guitar and I have no idea how everything sounded, but it seemed to progress well, the interview was fairly successful and all involved seemed happy with the result.

02/11 @ The Excelior Hotel
I was starving hungry by the time I took to the stage at The Excelsior, and the stage being located next to the Kitchen wasn’t helping, but after my experience in Brisbane I had learnt that rocking it up a bit worked very well and adopted a similar attitude. The set went well, people enjoyed it, and it turned out that the night was reviewed by Drum Media, one of the biggest street papers in Sydney, so thank god it was a good performance, though strangely the reviewer was English and a friend of a band called the Late Greats, who Macaca Mulatta have played with… it’s a small world!

03/11 @ Spectrum (DJ Set)
My DJ slot tonight was after the Scare had played, which is another odd UK coincidence as I had seen them play in London and reviewed the UK release of their EP… The venue wasn’t as busy as I hoped it would be and it emptied quickly after the band had played meaning that it was pretty empty by my slot, however I’m pleased to say that not only did I keep everyone in, I encouraged a few from the street. I had people impersonating Liam Gallagher on stage and even a few dancing. After the set, myself and a few people I’d met in Sydney over the past couple of nights relocated to a very cool bar upstairs that was laid back with great music and games to keep your attention.

10/11 @ Rob Roy
The brilliant Gels from Adelaide opened the night to a fairly empty room, but gave the general impression that rock out was what they were here to do and that nothing was going to stop them. The venue was filling up a little by the time I took

to the stage and by now I was settling into a good rhythm for the set, not really making many mistakes and working the audience (even if there weren’t that many of them!) I attempted some sort of stage leap at some point but on the way hit my head on a speaker, which put me off. After the gig we patronised a couple of pubs with such endearing names as ‘Labour in Vein’ and ‘Perseverance’ before returning home to see the Gels still up and drinking heavily, something they do quite often on tour, the two singers were up until 10am the next morning.

Adelaide
I immediately warmed to Adelaide, much like Brisbane it is small and easy to navigate, I think it also helped that we stayed in a really cool house with a host who as well as making BBQ also seemed to play an endless amount of good music.

16/11 @ 3D (Radio session)
3D’s studio looks a little like a house, in fact it probably was at some point in the past. However the interviewer for the show had some extremely well prepared and researched questions and it was perhaps one of the best interviews I’d done in a solo capacity.

16/11 @ Crown & Anchor
The Crown & Anchor is the first of two free gigs we were to play, which is a great idea and something we could do with doing more of in the UK. Entry is free, there are three of four original bands playing, the bands get paid from the bar and everyone’s happy. They’re usually held in slightly hairy

venues though, were everyone has the tendency to get horrendously drunk and shout a lot. I went on first tonight and did a short 20 minute set, cutting out all the slower songs, it went very well, with shouts from the audience and despite the lights being right in my eyes and not being able to see most of the room, a fairly healthy crowd.

Fremantle & Perth
Perth and it’s surrounding suburbs in Western Australia are about 2000 miles from their nearest neighbours in Southern Australia (Adelaide), this gives the city a fiercely independent outlook and perhaps a more aggressive feel than other Australian cities.

remembering them made me slightly nervous as I took to the stage for my own set. Mojo’s is also an odd venue, an Oasis of life on a dead road in North Fremantle, the burger shop next door being the only other place even open past 8pm, not even a cash machine could be found within walking distance. Again, my set passed without any major problems, as did playing guitar for Abdoujaparov.

18/11 @ Hyde Park Hotel
The second of the free pub gigs and even more hairy than the last, my set went exceedingly well despite an irritating group of people stood to the side of the stage who never ceased their inane chatter, very distracting and riled me somewhat, making it hard to interact nicely with the audience, causing possibly the nastiest rendition of ‘Cheesy Love Song’ I’ve ever played. The Old School Punk band who played after me bought an interesting element to the crowd, someone got concussed in the small mosh pit (requiring an ambulance), a fight ensued outside the venue and the band’s Bass player decided to chuck his beer (that he’d just spent half the set swearing at the bar staff for) over the audience. After Abdoujaparov’s storming set we patronised Perth’s only ‘alternative’ night, the choice of music was different, which was refreshing, but not particularly danceable, so we didn’t hang around long.

22/11 @ Cherry Bar (DJ Set)
The arrangements for tonight had always been somewhat vague, all I knew was that Cherry Bar is usually quite busy on a Wednesday, I had no idea what crowd to expect, how long I was DJ’ing for or even if I was the only DJ, I turned up to be told that there was a small contingent of the usual ‘Young Crowd’ in tonight, but that the vast majority of the crowd

were in fact in attendance at a 40th Birthday party, and that I would have to make sure the Birthday boy was happy, this was going to be interesting… However, despite having to DJ for over 3 hours (split slightly by a band) I held my own exceedingly well, people liked what I played, they danced, they made requests and all left pretty much after I finished, marvellous.

24/11 @ RRR (Radio session)
A final radio session, including a fairly hastily set up rendition of ‘Dancing on a Weeknight’ in which I decided to dedicate the song to various disparaged groups who might be listening, it seemed like a good idea when I thought about doing it, but I lost the drive and passion somewhere along the way and it didn’t come out quite as well as I was hoping it would.

Tokyo
After the relatively relaxed atmosphere of Australian cities, the pace was different from the second I stepped off the plane at Narita airport. Whilst a large amount of people speak English and a majority of signs are in English and Japanese, getting around and understanding what’s happening around you is still very hard, it was a mentally exhausting few days.

20/11 @ Lush
Japanese venues and the Japanese music scene operates very differently from anything I’ve experienced before. For a start they commence and finish very early, secondly the sound crew (even at the smallest of venues) set everything

up with precision, including your pedals, guitars and microphones and wouldn’t hear of you doing it yourself It’s not all good news though as venue hire is very expensive and every source of income goes into paying for this including from the traditional bread winner of smaller touring bands, the merchandise. The two support bands for the night were incredible (don’t ask me who they were as they both had Japanese names), we started with a guitar and drums two-piece who in the grand tradition of recent duos were mental, noisy and flung themselves around the stage like there was no tomorrow. The next act was the polar opposite, a well presented young man, sat at a piano who played several beautiful compositions and spoke some (what he described as) ‘prose’, I couldn’t understand a word of it, but it was very engaging. Then came my set, after an exhausting few days and some weighty dinner I wasn’t quite as energetic as I wanted to be, but I played well and the set was well received, I even got some call and response going in the audience, iDou sounded great and were extremely well received, crowds dancing and everyone having a great time. Melbourne was good, but tonight was really the icing on the cake to an awesome tour and a brilliant Experience.

Words and Pictures by Chris Chinchilla
www.chinchilla-music.co.uk