Bands, BBQs and Barry White

There's nothing quite like an obscure title to add increased levels of mystique to a weekend report. It was a good a weekend though, if only because of the variety of events and activities that took place.. so, here is the weekend report:

Friday night
After a very busy week, and having not felt 100 percent for most it (I have been feeling very tired and lethargic the last few days), I had originally planned to spend Friday night at home relaxing, and possibly continuing my work on Gink's automoatic cat feeder (using old milk cartons remember - the project is still riddled with design problems). However, after speaking with my friend Phil (another PhD student) at lunch time, I decided to join him and catch a couple of bands that night.

We went to one of Canberra's better known live music venues, The Green Room, in Woden. The Green room is nothing to write home about in appearance or location. Its a room, above what appears to be a pretty dodgy Irish pub called "O'Sheas" (to be sure to be sure). However, as a venue for live music, its fine, and because its one of the few venues in the ACT devoted to live, original music, it often plays host to some quite decent touring bands.

From my experience, Canberra's local music scene is not particularly strong, though a couple of bands I've seen are very good. Canberra, however, gets a healthy supply of out-of-towners, particularly from Sydney. Last Friday night, I saw two bands from Sydney that were both great. I don't know who the first band were (I never caught their name, and haven't been able to track them down) but their claim to fame was that their new single was to appear on Rage that night, which, at the very least, means they are serious enough to make a video worthy of national airplay (and I guess making the trip from Sydney also gives some indication that this band is pretty keen to play). The lead singer had a very strong voice, and gave the band a bit of a "Cure" feel to their music. After these guys finished, the headline act was a band called "Dappled Cities Fly" who played an excellent alt-rock set, despite having numerous problems with guitars.

It felt good to be out listening to live music. Canberrans don't exactly embrace original live music, unless its a big name. You tend to see bigger crowds at a regular pub karaoke night than at a Friday night pub gig, which is depressing to say the least (though not entirely unappreciated if you're the one up on stage, belting out some of Barnsey's best). However, from my experience, Canberra music goers are, for the most part, pretty relaxed and accommodating of unknown bands. I think this stems from the fact that when you don't have a huge amount to choose from, you are just happy to have some live music to listen to at all. I suspect this is also why bands from Sydney like to come to Canberra regularly - its nice to be appreciated.

Saturday morning
Aff went off to have breakfast with a friend, so I was left to my own devices for the morning. I made my usual trip to "Belco Mall" to buy a newspaper. The only exciting thing about this trip was that, for the second time in three weeks, I saw the ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope. Of course, many non-Canberrans may not know him, however, in recent weeks he has gained some national attention for publishing the Commonwealth government's draft anti-terrorist legislation on his website. Three weeks ago, I lined up at the Belco Mall Deli to buy some salami, when who should be standing next to me but the Chief Minister. On that occasion, I actually exchanged a few words with him:

Shop attendant - "who's next"
Mr Stanhope - "please, you go first"
Chris - "no, please, after you."
Mr Stanhope - "thankyou".
Chris - "no worries".

Mr Stanhope purchased some honey glazed ham (reduced fat) - a fitting purchase for a territory leader I thought.

On this occasion, however, I said nothing to Jon, but gave him a nod as he walked past. I don't think he remembered me though.

Saturday night
Aff and I went to a BBQ in Barton, which is a Canberra suburb just next to Parliament House, and as such, a fairly exclusive one. A friend of mine from netball, Nick, was hosting the event, and put on quite a spread of food. It was a good night, despite a slight over supply of public servants on hand to dictate conversation. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against public servants, but you put 20 of them together at a party, and conversations inevitably become riddled with inaccessible acronyms and "management-speak". At various points of the night, I almost felt like I was in an episode of The Office.

I am probably being quite unfair with this description. The night was great, and a majority of the people I met were very friendly and interesting. I probably wasn't the greatest conversation provider on the night either, as I was quite tired, and lacking energy. We went home at about 10pm, so it was no biggy. I was also conscious of my big Sunday morning on the radio airwaves of Canberra community radio, which brings me to the main event of the weekend ...

Sunday morning
I had spent considerable time on Saturday afternoon, preparing myself for my debut radio experience. Earlier in the week, Tim emailed me a rough set of questions he was planning on asking me, which made things very easy. My main concern was not being unable to answer these questions, as they were quite simple to answer in terms of content, but rather, to make sure I didn't spend half an hour answering each question (which I have a tendancy to do sometimes). So rather than give Tim my complete autobiography when he asked me: "have you always wanted to do robotics?", I tried to keep my response to something under thirty seconds, which I eventually boiled down to a response of: "no, I wanted to be a train driver".

I was pretty nervous beforehand, but after meeting up with Tim and his co-host, Osman, about 45 minutes before the show, my nerves were instantly calmed by their relaxed attitude .. or perhaps it was just the soothing sounds of "Irish Voice" from the show beforehand.

Tim, as producer, went through the run sheet for the show, and introduced me to some very cool radio hand signals, including the standard "wind it up" lassoo action, as well as the slightly more abrupt, cut throat action, which essentially translates to "shut the f$@k up". Thankfully, Tim never had to use the latter signal.

The show itself was great, and I had a ball. The interview went well, and from all reports, I made some sense. According to Aff, I apparently have quite a sexy radio voice, although this is the opinion of someone I have been in a relationship with for nearly 6 years. Personally, I thought Tim's voice was the winner of this category. Even I found myself experiencing the occasional shiver down the spine, particularly when Tim said: "your listening to ....Fuzzy Logic". Needless to say, it was an exciting and emotional hour of science radio.

In addition to my interview, I also contributed to a regular segment on Tim's show, "Horoscopes for the Stars of Science", where a brief bio is given for a favourite scientist born in the current star of the Zodiac (Scorpio). I chose the early 20th century astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher - I knew nothing about Vesto, but chose him because he had the coolest name i could find.

Watching Tim at work was also impressive. As you can probably imagine, community radio isn't exactly rolling in cash. Most of the stuff in the studio would have been at least 10 years old, and in some cases, much much older.... as Tim said to me just before we arrived at the studio, things are "very analog" here. Given also that the host of the show has to manage all the mics, the music, the promos and other technical aspects of the show, it is quite an energy sapping hour for someone in his position. Tim, despite some technical hitches outside of his control, looked completely in control, and hosted a very good show.

So as you can probably tell, I had great fun being part of it, and am very keen to get more involved... and from all reports, they are looking for more volunteers .. which is great. So, to all those 2XX listeners out there (i.e. Aff and Lee-Fay), stay tuned to 98.3 2XX FM every Sunday morning at 11.30am, for your weekly dose of Fuzzy Logic - its sexy, its sensual, its science.

I have tasted fame .... and I like it.