Wait Long By The River

James Kenyon hails from the Australia's Other Other Great City, Adelaide. In the intervening years he's done a pretty thorough job of dismantling it through art and story, including an art exhibition at MARS gallery in which he tortured city maps, twisted local sounds, and did his best to pretend that a millennium of erosion had cleaned up the city.

But before he destroyed his hometown with his art, he worked in a factory for a year, and bought a Bedford Van with two double beds in it and took to the highway. He travelled the country, got a degree in fine art, moved to Melbourne, and recorded an album. It was called The North Pole, and his next has to be out before September. Why? Listen to the show!

Tom McLean is a jokes guy. And a programmer. And a game designer. And a documentary videographer. It's not an easy life being so many things, but he makes it look easy with a charming smile and jokes about the Pope, among countless other things. He's form Melbourne, and he came in to the comforot of our podcasting library to talk about his many works.

In this episode Tom and I discuss starting out as a comedian, how to structure a comedy night so as to avoid death lulls, Foxconn and the Fair Phone, his new podcast Two Wizards, thingsfittingperfectlyintootherthings.tumblr.com, his enormously successful board game Story War, ASMR, page names, becoming a Christian at a late age and then un-a Christian later even than that, visiting charities in Africa and India, the romance of phone metadata, and how he stole the title of his latest show from a work by Ai Wei Wei.

Make sure you get tickets to his show, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival!

Hailing from the south of Melbourne, Erik Parker is a genuinely unique performer. You couldn't pin his influences down if you tried. Lucky we had a chance to ask him!

He has quite a palette - a variety of ukeleles and related instruments, guitar, versatile vocals, and an assortment of gadgets that would put the European space program to shame. 

In this show, in between great renditions of his and other people's tracks (keep an ear out for his Teardrop cover!) Erik talks growing up down south, making a full-time living as a musician, the vagaries of running open mic nights, and what makes Wide Open Spaces the greatest festival in Australia.

"I came to the realisation a couple of years ago that everything I do for work is music related, plus everything I do socially is music related, plus I realised I was reading things that were music-related, and reading things that were music-related, and listening to music and watching documentaries... so I've been learning a little French?"

Brooke Russell is a WA native who moved to Melbourne and fell in with the right crowd. Her sweet, deep, country style found a perfect habitat in the Inner North's Americana revival.

Brooke casually reeled off quite a list of great musicians to listen to, so we're going to be posting tracks from them, and her, on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/waitlongbytheriver

Slam poet, artistic genius, Queanbeyanite, author, orator.

"It's a short life. I'm always very aware of mortality. That's just the way I'm built - I don't have a minute to waste."

Omar Musa is a Queanbeyan native ("2602, adds up to a perfect 10!") and proud of it. His latest book, which reached number 2 in Australia the week before we recorded the show, is called Here Come The Dogs, and it has been the focus of some very positive attention. We spent some time talking about the novel, but a lot of this podcast rolls out just how this kind of thing should - it's a flowing conversation, touching on slam poetry, mortality, Cicero, Malcolm X, Stanislawksi, making a life around a crazy workload, and the worst bookshop in Alice Springs.

This was our first live show outside of Melbourne - thanks a million to Meg O'Connell for coming up with the idea, pulling strings, finding a venue, and making it happen.

Strong-willed, big-voiced alt-country singer Ruby Boots

"I find it hard to relinquish any control of what I'm doing... I will do anything at all costs to get a job done if it has to do with my music."

There's no question that Bex Chilcott - nom de guitare Ruby Boots - is driven. This episode was a fine opportunity to find out that that assertive attitude is central to her character. Her laugh is proud, her statements direct and her stories don't demur to self-aggrandisement or braggadocio. In short, she's an admirable type who talked circles around our humble host. As she puts it, "I don't think anything I do can be quiet. I don't know if quiet is part of my being."

Our chat happened across some wonderful stories, including but not limited to self-managing a music career out of a suitcase, living the solitary life of a pearler off the coast of WA, and overcoming her addiction to red boots.

Al Parkinson - Uke-strumming badass on living your whole life in your passion, and the community at the heart of music

"In my life I'm all about relationships and I think that's why I love music so much. It just builds this amazing community of people, and I get to surround myself with lovely and talented people, whether they're musicians or not."

What a stellar show this was. Al Parkinson and I hit it off right from the intro and the audience was right there with us. It was a dream. Unfortunately, as with most lovely dreams, it was cut off early by an electronic device. In this case it wasn't an alarm, but the recording device, which carped out at 25 minutes of a 70 minute interview.

Oh, the things we discussed! There was some really fantastic material in those last two thirds. Those of us who were lucky enough to be there on the night got to hear about premonitions, the act of creation, finding a thousand routes around writer's block, and how writer's block might not be a block at all. All the more reason to catch our live shows at Some Velvet Morning, huh? I console myself with the words of John Lennon: "Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted." As a bonus, it means we have an excuse to bring Alvis back on the show, asap! Until then, enjoy this short and swiggety interview. 

Darren Hanlon - Urban folk cornerstone, funny and hearfelt, on travelling the world and settling down at the same time

Darren Hanlon had toured the world for a decade and he was looking at recording his next album. "I got disheartened with the whole music process where you record an album and you tour it for three years. It felt like the factory line model of music." In his pocket was a much-thumbed New Yorker article about an expert of field recording who recorded what he found as he travelled. The idea resonated. "I had a plan. The plan was to have no plan."

The album's on its way, with a book reflecting on its creation. To tide you over until the release, tentatively announced for February 2015, we have a sterling interview for you. We talk about the Merri River Lungfish, his time living among the stacks at the Blue Guitar book shop, forcing (future guest) Mick Thomas to watch the Goonies, finding the original indigenous Slim Dusty, the success that was Slagfest, and the unexpected success of Elbows in Latvia.

Check out the show at the bar below or on iTunes and be sure to hit us up on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/waitlongbytheriver and Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/longbytheriver!