sensory overload

feeling okie with taking cover

i accepted a gig knowing it would be way too loud for my tinnitus. i answer the call as my younger self, the one that never found volume a problem and now as the show looms closer i tune into my body’s response and she cries ‘ who are you kidding??’ i vowed to protect what tiny few hairs in my ears i have left so i can hear the birds. i send word of my situation, my regret and reality. a difficult woman ? no, just an honest one. i never even asked about the smoke machines. seeing gillian & dave recently in a fairly large venue but not large enough to escape my eyes feeling peeled raw and plugged back into their sockets. the air was thick. i only managed one encore and had to duck out to the foyer to breath. we’d all been smoking for the last 2 1/2 hours. it was akin to a bushfire outside and you left the doors open. a show before that was in a smaller theatre where the fog machine was above my head intermittently topping up the room when the clouds started to part. i remembered movies with gas chambers and had to make my escape. what ever happened to dry ice? i love that spooky stuff. it dissipates and remains low to the ground adding high drama for a moment. i had to look up the what the fuck we’re all breathing when i returned home knowing they’d replaced the lethal paraffin shit, but with what exactly? wiki says: fog fluid compositions that consist of a mixture of water and glycol and glycerin which are known to cause irritations with some people being more sensitive. i can’t think what the alternative would be..water vapor? growing up in pubs and clubs in australia where everyone was smoking we didn’t need to recreate it.the venues would be thick with smoke (and ashtrays) and the lights would make you sweat. par 64’s were a 1000 watts each, and we performed under rows of them. i played the first venue to ban smoking years before it became enforced, tilley’s wine bar in canberra and Paulie, the owner got heaps of flak saying it’ll never stick. me and tim gaze hit the stage and it was like something was missing but for me the non smoker / singer it was a dream and for timmy who’d only recently gone cold turkey was loving it too.

i now have to be very selective with what i go to see/hear with my global-high-intensity-activation (a label used in the Somatic Experiencing® world to refer to the nervous system state of certain clients, ie: me), as i’m dogged from all sides, oops did i mention mens cologne? makes my dads ‘old spice’ almost seem natural. i once read a 12 yr old boy died from too much exposure to LINX deodorant.what the fuck is in that shit? everything is turned up to 11 on the dial with no more headroom just the RED. the ears and eyes bleed level, the, are you feeling it yet level. i cant even go to the cinema without ear protection now, but then again i use ear plugs to make my smoothie in the morning as the ninja is so noisey.also use them in the ocean to prevent ear aches hahaha.

(check the great use of dry ice on the vid above…)

i guess what spurred this rant was on being approached by a muso who i hadn’t worked with for 20 yrs and thinking i was still that same person. he said he’d gone more bombastic and me ? well as you can hear, extremely the other way, how to meet in the middle? isn’t everyone a little sensitive but too polite to say? i walked into a health food store yesterday and the sweetheart working there was sucking frantically on a large plastic tube like a giant bong. she was having a full asthma attack as her colleague had innocently lit some incense. i was floored seeing how life and death this was for her.suddenly i was back in the geelong hospital about 6 yrs of age, visiting my sweet grandmother alice who was waving at me from a plastic tent. oxygen was pumped inside for her asthma condition.i just have to be more honest. unfortunately i have to sit out more shows or come fully prepared when i do - “oh yeah that’s my weird friend wearing the noise cancelling headphones with the gas mask sitting by the fire exit, yeah she’s okie “.i take more pleasure walking in nature than anything else - yes i would love to have accepted the invite to the ball and been part of the love vibe created by so many enthusiastic music lovers under one roof and playing with a bunch of musos i hardly know, the green room, the after party, the old friends found. i look to patti smith / laurie anderson / kate bush, still making art for inspiration but it was seeing leonard cohen a couple of times that made me see that you can make even the most difficult stadium sound like your lounge stereo. he created ‘the quietest show on earth’ and i had the good fortune to meet him and thank him. my good friend bass player and musical director roscoe beck, told me he took several hours doing sound check, going to the far corners of each venue to listen and get it just right. to have 15k folks weeping to a tiny casio and leonards voice whispering in my ear was a testament to a great engineer and an artist that shared our sensitivities. i too want to keep carving my own niche, designing and curating, taking my quirks into consideration, not beating anyone into submission or gassing them without consent.

meeting Leonard with our blue holdalls/ backstage with Roscoe Beck

do you remember reaching for your dads beer when he wasn’t looking and it tasted like shit? or going to a local concert and running down the front isle as a child whilst holding your ears with the music so loud? or your dad smoking on waking and it felt like your first fix? at night we were hostages in a small lounge-room with my family of 6 and peter stuyvesant. dad, a 50 a day man turning the ceiling that tea-stained orange. how as kids, we all instinctively blocked our ears, held our nose, or spat it out. why do we want to loose all that ? wild horses broken in, harnessed to be ridden like the rest of the pack. and then as well-behaved adults when you express your sensitivities like a child you’re seen as neurodivergent or difficult or uninvited.

ps my dear friend with ADHD said ‘couldn’t you just take Ritalin and wear ear muffs and charge on thru?’

love and understanding ….xxx