After arriving at 1am, an hour late, then dealing with accomodation mess up, I left my hotel early in the morning to the meeting. I'm here to participate in the APC Regional Consultation Meeting on ICT Policy in Asia.

Upon entering the main street I walked into what looked like hundreds of rowdy rock weilding protesters. There's a general national strike in effect. Anyone showing signs of working was set upon with stones.

No photos of the mailaise, but I do have a construction site. Maybe tomorrow I can get close enough to photograph the barefoot workers. As I entered the BRAC Building in which we're holding the Meeting riot police appeared from no specific origin and suddenly there was smoke and a greater sense of calamity.

Interested in the meeting? I'm keeping a blog there.

Tags: dhaka06 APC ICT4D

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You know, these days I just don't spend anywhere near as much time as I used to in the Starlight Room. But the ideas and will to produce is no less, it's time that I have less and less of. Not that I despair at what I do with the lions share of my time, in fact, I've probably got the best job in the country!

I'd planned to spend much of Easter in the studio, but alas, one evening and a long morning was all I could muster. As Ollie once told me, there's no rushing the kind of music we do. That's all well and good, but I have this urgency that is some how tiring me at this time.

And so it is that I leave Melbourne in a few hours for Bangladesh... Back in a week. Adios...!!!

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In May of this year I will be 44. I have near on a 1cm of grey skunking from the roots of my hair. The rest is some faint resemblence of natural hair colour. And it's this that I'm hanging onto for a while. I ain't quite ready to lose that half of my life cause once it's cut it ain't ever comin back!

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I was fast asleep and dreaming. I was a little older and playing in a band. I think Steve Law was there. Looked like he was playing guitar...

I was hunched over my keyboards... we were playing outdoors to a huge crowd. It was late afternoon. There was a gorgeous sunset. Suddenly there was this god awful noise, like the speakers had blown but louder... I looked up as Steve yelled "What the fuck?!" I saw the entire world around consumed by this intense burst of hot white light that engulfed everything. It was heading straight for me. I ducked when WHAM! It had totally consumed me and I thought now the pain would come, but I felt this overwhelming warmth and then my conciseness expanded... expanded rapidly to the furthermost stars and beyond. I could still sense my body and then I could see it hunched there, a shell, and my stomach felt hollow as my field of comprehension grew at a pace. It was at that point that I woke and repeated the dream over and over until I got up and fixed the coffee.

I did not die. I woke up! But something happened!

As I rode to work I started singing

I lay my head on yer pillow,
fires burning at the window...

A lovely melody grew there... I sang those few words over and over till I got to Docklands when a few more words appeared...

They said you'd be cold of heart...

But damit! That's it... I can't remember the rest. That's it! End of story...

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OK, so South Africa was pretty incredible. To clarify, the 12 days in Ithala were pretty amazing. There's something deeply troubling about the fact that so many of us live removed from nature... I mean, we eat and sleep which is pretty natural, but not many of us live in close proximity to wildlife, from birds to beasts, from mammals to reptiles. It was mighty fine having this experience just about 11 months after my last excursion into deep nature, Currajuggle, NSW Southern Highlands.

Since getting back I've had little time for independent thought having had to charge into OPEN CHANNEL work and learn so much more about delegation and leadership. It's pretty much all I can do and pretty much all I should be doing, but if I can't at least spend some time in the studio then I'm losing myself entirely and I can't survive on OPEN CHANNEL alone regardless of how stimulating it is.

So, I've launched into an album I've been thinking about for over a year or so now. It's going to be a vocal based work, something that's been long overdue. I began work on it in Ithala and last night/early this morning got some of the more important parts of the first track down. Including some vocals, largely test vocals to develop production ideas by.

Starlight Room sessions #00

Yeh, I was belting it out in the Starlight Room (my studio) and it felt great! I may be in some kind of emotional exile, but there's words and musical ideas to spare, although no where as much time as I would need to feel complete with both myself and this emergent body of work.

And what of the previous albums? Good question! Andy Thomas and I have finally settled on a design specification for all new Secession releases meaning we have a go ahead for Son of Science packaging. I hope to have this well and truly in my hand by the time I leave for the iCommons conference in Rio.

I have at least another two Headlock pieces to complete and then I'll be visiting Mr Mastering Maestro, Simon Polenski, and that'll be another odyssey completed. Right now I care less about performing live than I do spending time developing ideas and concepts that are never far. And with a new notebook at my finger tips, projects develop faster and production becomes ever more portable.

Farewell dear SPACE (a Sony VIAO), how well we travelled. Hello MOMO (a Toshiba TECRA)... how'd you like yer first o/s trip? These notebooks get a fair bit of travelling in I can tell you )

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