I’ve known Mick a long time, a friend initially through my wife Tina who has known him even longer, a quarter century and counting. They share, with others, a history in their Adelaide home town of creativity and ar-tistic community that has always seemed intoxicating to me. So very dif-ferent to the environment I experienced on the other side of the planet. I’ve never quite lost the sense of fascination, of awe at what Mick and others have achieved in creating and evolving Urban Cow, the Rhino Room and Howling Owl. Listen to this cracking interview to understand just what this menagerie of venues offers to the lucky people of Adelaide.

This interview, the Heliosphere Season Two closer, was conducted towards and through sunset on a cool Summer evening in Mick and his wife Ra-chel’s gorgeous ocean-side home. (Thank-you for lending me your man for so many hours Rachel!). As with so many of my intrepid, marooned astro-nauts, Mick began his interrogation almost unable to believe that the thing might take so long to work through. It seems increasingly that they come in around the four hour mark. I hope you (and Mick!) will agree that this languid, conversational pace and cavalier approach to editing pays dividends. The idea is that the stories unfold, the atmos-phere relaxes, the sense of the individual, overt and unstated, breathes through the thing. The waves and the spaces between the waves.

Unlike many, (but not all), Mick had in advance a strong sense of where he thought the interview would go, of the stories and scenes he would paint for me; for us. I’m very happy to say that he was only partially correct! At one point I took a gamble and let him know that, while he was the interviewee, for once he wasn’t the boss. Thankfully he saw the funny side, as did Rachel when we told her about this exchange after-wards.

On a more serious note, I gradually became aware throughout the inter-view, and in conversation during each song, that Mick was struggling to process and communicate a period of his life. Namely the earlier, pre-adulthood time in Gawler. Not that there was some dreadful spectre lurk-ing there, I think, but for me this provided yet another lesson in the art of the interview. I innocently prodded Mick on his childhood and teens at the beginning only to realise his hesitancy was borne not of early-interview nerves but a discomfort. From then on I worked even harder to listen, allow reflection. Mick, sorry for giving you sweaty palms mate!

I hope you can hear the depth to our discussion and the way Mick framed his stories; the amazing adventures and characters. I loved talking with my pal, as I always do. Listen closely and you can hear the space be-tween the waves.

This song marked the point of me leaving high school and moving into adulthood.

Although I had not started full time employment at this stage, every morning I would wake up in my parent’s house and after they went to work this would be one of the first songs on one