Bali: Surprise, its Galungan festival!

As I said earlier, in visiting Ubud we were on a bit of a cultural voyage. So the fact that we arrived in Bali on the week of Galungan festival was serendipitous (you can read more about the festival here). I mean, Indonesia is always celebrating something. But this one is huge. More than a week of intense days of preparation, celebration, street decoration, food (particularly eating pork, sacrificed especially for the occasion), temple visits, kids parading about the streets in their clanging gamelan bands followed by a mini dancing dragon. Basically the idea is that once a year (210 days in the Balinese calendar) the spirits of cremated relatives come back for a visit and its everyone's job to be as hospitable as possible, through generous offerings, celebration and prayer. It is also when Balinece celebrate the victory of dharma over adharma. My simple understanding is that its a combination of the sentiments:  'things are in balance', 'good has beaten evil' and 'woohoo, we made it!'. Galungan was a perfect time to be in a Balinese village, because the community truly erupted in decoration and music. Everyone was dressed in traditional dress (heres a photo of us with Pak Tangsi ready for temple), smiling and enjoying their few days off. Although I must say, the women worked tirelessly, preparing all the offerings and food, and seemed mega exhausted once it was over.

Visiting the three village temples on Galungan day (each with its own meaning and symbolic location, find out more here if you're interested) was a really special experience. Wearing my traditional kabaya (tailored by Tangsi's clever wife, and wrapped snugly around me by Tangsi's daughter on the day) meant that I looked only slightly less out of place with my pale skin and light hair! Thankfully we already new some locals by then, so there were friendly welcomes all around, and one kind lady generously gave us flowers and incense when it was apparent we hadn't brought our own.

Tangsi also led us through the process of prayer. It had a lot more to do with contemplative thought, being grateful, and listening to your heart than anything I had expected. I actually found the practice quite calming! I'm not about to convert to Hindu or any religion anytime soon. But I could see why the ideals and practices of Balinese Hinduism might appeal to a westerner seeking solace. Hence the masses of women (in particular) who have flocked to Bali for all kinds of spiritual nourishment. Hence Eat Pray Love. I kinda get it.

For visitors that don't get caught up in local festivities, the appearance of penjor along the streets is probably the most obvious sign of Galungan. These welcoming street decorations are prepared and displayed by each family and erected out the front of their homes. They are made from a bamboo pole and decorated by things from the ricefields or farms - flowers, bunches of rice kernels, leaves. While they are all similar, each family takes pride in making it their own way. They have a rule that everything it is made from has to be natural. But every rule can be bent for convenience of course - they were fastened together using staples! Love it!

Note: This post forms part of a whole bunch on my trip to Ubud, Bali. If you want to read it from the start, heres the first post!

The magic of the ukulele

The fourth annual Melbourne Ukulele Festival (affectionately called MUF) is in less than a week. Since this is such a fantastic festival, and my little band the Urban Ukes are playing there, I thought it timely to blog about ukuleles and how they make me rather happy.

Heres the cute poster I made for the event:

Me and the Uke

I picked up the ukulele a few years ago after I got quite sick and needed a positive bed-friendly distraction. My first ukulele was a lovely warm 6 stringed tenor Lanikai, and it's still my favourite. It led to a lot of songwriting and open mics, and then meeting the Melbourne Ukulele Collective (MUK) and playing at their monthly open mic night. There I met the very talented uker, John Ferguson, and we've been playing together ever since. The whole being sick/music thing triggered a bit of a strange metamorphosis in me, and I decided to stop my day job, take a break, and reconfigure my compass in a more permanently creative direction. I have never really looked back. I took a year to study music at NMIT (and even blogged about it here), where I met Tom Jacka, who jumped on board with the double bass. Urban Ukes is now a fully rounded little musical outfit and awesome fun. We do lovely little gigs, mostly around Melbourne, and functions too. If you want to keep up with our news, we have a facebook page!

Why ukulele is the bomb

The ukulele is a pretty special little instrument. Its portable, cheap, easy to learn, and doesn't require any freakish finger stretches to do nice chords. These advantages might partly explain the fanatical plague that has swept the globe in the past few years: replacing the recorder as the class instrument in primary schools, ukulele collectives and festivals popping up everywhere, dominating YouTube channels, inspiring an entire album by Eddie Vedder.

Interestingly, it's not the first time people have gone mad for the ukulele - there was a bit of a craze in the 1920's jazz scene. But mass production and spreading of the word through the web has made this one entirely epic. Its interesting that it comes at a time when vintage, and DIY and all those nostalgic things have most definitely come back into the mainstream.

Even if the boom is just a fleeting fashion thing, it doesn't really matter. The important thing is that it's made music more accessible and less intimidating, so more people are making and sharing it (not just listening) and that is just splendid! I am also quite stoked that kids will be playing an instrument in school that they can sing along to. Recorder always felt so restrained. Except maybe for this guy.

You should play too!

If you feel like jumping on the friendly ukulele wagon, a good place to start is the ukulele hunt website and of course if you're in or around Melbourne, new people are always welcome to come along to the MUK beginners and open mic nights.

Newstead Live 2013 - On the fringe of beautiful chaos

The flags are finally up and flying, adorning the long main streets of our pretty little town. Over the next 24 hours, music lovers will roll in from far and wide, setting up cosy camp under whatever shade they can muster to fend off the dry summer heat. 

From the verandah, the sounds are of a town putting on the final touches while the visitors assemble their temporary homes. The crunching of gravel under tyres and thumping of car doors, the aluminium clanking of tent poles accompanied by melodic camping chatter, the booming ‘test one, two’ over the PA, guys yelling to one another about equipment, the hammering of pegs. There’s a distinct festival buzz in the air.

A handful of tents are eagerly pinned along the wide rim of the football oval. Others, mostly performers, are clustered together in neighbourly rows in the horse paddocks by the lane. A few visitors seeking solitude might already have ventured further afield, across the banks of the barely trickling Loddon River, and pitched under the whispering gums of the racecourse.

Rent-a-loos and garbage bins magically materialize - tucked discreetly among the magnificent elm trees that line the nature strip. The arrival of food vans is announced by an urgent and vocal hunt for power outlets.

Over the last seven years, the locals have grown to love this time of year, when the vibrant central Victorian township truly comes to life. As Australia Day weekend swings around, the Newstead Live music festival explodes with a colourful crew of wordsmiths, singers, artists, dancers and players, and the result is captivating.

As it gets into full swing, poetry readings lull us awake each morning from the Troubadour stage - a spatter of slow enthusiastic claps assuring us that a few early risers have made it. The mysterious jangling of Morris dancers (mum’s favourite cultural spectacle) tickles the air down the main street, drawing you in like a siren’s call. There is colour everywhere – banners, capes, top hats, flags, signs pointing this way and that. I spot three oak trees proudly dressed in colourful crochet. The craft bombers have been at their stealthy nightworks again.

Market stalls fill the primary school grounds in a wide circle, offering authentic Thai food, face-painting, lovely vintage cakes and jams by the equally lovely and vintage ladies of the historical society, the sausage sizzle, lucky dip, and the notoriously contentious meat raffle. A kid dressed in complete pirate costume hurls past me, swinging her full sized plastic sword and ‘aaarhging’ enthusiastically. I wonder whether I’ll spot any evidence that cow poo lotto – the fundraising genius of farming towns – made it this year?

As temperatures soar, the adoreably entrepreneurial kids from the blue weatherboard house set up shop. With wide gappy grins, a wobbly fold-out table and cardboard signs reading ‘HoMemADe LEmOnaED oNly 50c’, they’re sold out by midday. Dogs bark at the violins as they chase circles around one another. Kids chase the dogs. Parents keep one watchful eye on the kids as they flip through the program.

Rival impromptu bands materialise on opposite street corners of the pub and the café. Musicians perch on hay bales wrapped in dusty twine, or tattered instrument cases. Clutching a ukulele, I ask if anyone knows what the tune is. “C…F…G” a double bass player mouths widely at me, while the guy on the bright yellow plastic trombone (a ‘p-bone’ he later clarifies) gives me an encouraging eyebrow nudge to join in. The sound and tempo morphs along with the mood of the day and late into the night, as a parade of harps, guitars, harmonicas, fiddles and accordions join the fray.

After three solid days of performances and workshops at each of the festival's eight venues, everyone is exhausted. The festival might be small but it packs a lot of punch. Having never committed to a genre, each year is sufficiently different from the last to leave you wondering, and there are always surprises. It can also be a bit hit-and-miss, but it's alwaysgreat to see local and fledgling acts on the program too.

The sun beats down on us as we wedge our things into the boot, wave goodbye to the parents, and kick up a cloud of dust in their driveway on the way out. Settling into the journey, I smile at the irony of our need to return to the city for a rest. By the looks on everyone’s happy but weary faces on the way out of town, the festival has worked its magic. I imagine that after all the tents are packed away, trucks are loaded and flags rolled up, little Newstead will happily return to its normal slumber, until next year. 

My top 3 picks for 2013:

1. Half an hour of the intensely poetic music of young Werribee lad Jack Gramski (‘like Bob Dylan, but he can sing’), who I predict will be cramming venues as his intense but charming steam-punk brand of folk develops. Oh and here's a video I took of 'The Jack Gramski theme song'.

2. A blues guitar workshop in my mum’s art studio by humble master Nick Charles who quashed the reputation of the capo as a musicians tool of shame and demystified what he called the ‘black forest’ of the upper fretboard, making the jump from ukulele to guitar seem not so scary after all.

3. Stumbling on the incredibly versatile, melodic and personal tunes and tales of Tassie girl Monique Brumby, who is a total charm.