The Garden of Unearthly Delights

See http://gardenofunearthlydelights.com.au/ for more info.

This is my home at the moment, the crazy magical carnival garden in Adelaide that’s set up for the Adelaide Fringe Festival. It’s the 10th year of the Garden, and it’s everything it’s title suggests and more!

I helped with the build of the Garden (40-60 crew working all day every day for 2-3 weeks to set the whole thing up in Rundle Park on the NE corner of Adelaide city), and then I become part of the Front Of House team, standing on the front gate dressed up like a pirate carnie with a megaphone shouting down Adelaide and greeting the million or so revellers they expect to walk through the gates between 16 February and 18 March.

I’ll be doin a couple of solo shows on the outdoor Bandstand stage on Sun 19 Feb and Sat 17 March.

Back in Melbourne late March, few shows here and there, then back to New York City to set up at the Anyway Cafe every Tuesday night for two months from May to July!!!

Look out for The Miserable Little Bastards at Port Fairy Folk Festival and Apollo Bay Music Festival in March and April.

The Miserable Little Bastards album out November 2011

The Miserable Little Bastards (Clinkerfield’s now out-of-control side-project – see “ALL ABOUT THE BANDS” for more unfo) have been working on a debut record now since April 2010 (when it was recorded at Fitzroy’s Adelphia Studios). And finally – it’s ready!

And look out! You can see The MLB’s at the Toff In Town every Tuesday in November (except the 1st and 15th Nov). Read on…

DEPRESSED RELEASE!

The Miserable Little Bastards are an old-school throwback for the modern day fallout, performing depression-era show-tunes for the new global recession, and their debut album “Misery Loves Company” will be released locally through Waste Management over Summer 2011/12.

Conceived in 2008 as a side project for drunken-pirate-convict-rock maniacs Clinkerfield, The Miserable Little Bastards have evolved into a mystery bag of some of Melbourne’s finest musicians, featuring banjo, fiddle, mandolin, bass and acoustic guitar, squeezebox, and a chorus of men singing along to the rambunctious rambling of ringleader Jimmy Stewart.

The fun begins over THREE Tuesday evening shows at Melbourne’s Toff In Town for November (Except 1st Nov and 15th Nov), where they will join forces each week with “While The Mountain Waits“, a theatrical monologue-based performance by Josh Cameron with live musical accompaniment by Pete Ewing and Ed Service. It delivers the “lost world of a country-come-city bloke dreaming of a return”, and it is via this essential kinship that The MLB’s and “While The Mountain Waits” will weave together their stories, developing the collaboration over the course of the month. Opening acts each week will host members of the MLB’s presenting their own material featuring: Danny Walsh Banned; Jason Bunn’s String Quartet; Warwick Dunn’s Debut; and Andrew Alves GALAX project – a very talented bunch of bastards!

It’s an in-house circus of delights! Tuesdays at the Toff In Town for November will be Melbourne’s only midweek entertainment destination, with a full program of musical dramatics from 8pm til late each week, followed by DJ’s til it’s time to go up or throw home.

Advance copies of the “Misery Loves Company” album will be available on these nights and at select record stores on 12” vinyl and CD, and it will make you very happy indeed…!

Doors 8pm, $10 entry.

Jimmy Stewart’s Wonderful Life Continues in Melbourne Town

Hi, my name’s Jimmy and I’m from Fitzroy. For now.

You can have a listen to me on Melbourne radio here at…

http://soundcloud.com/mercial_booker/jimmy-stewart-rrr-fm-interview

…it’s a live interview I upheld professionally and precariously on Sunday 7 August 2011 on RRR FM with Jon Von Goes, after a particularly wild night where I experienced an almost complete core reactor meltdown that could’ve had lasting and devastating impacts on outlying coastal provinces within reach of the fallout, tremors, repercussions and aftershocks. Phew.

— — —

So, in case you didn’t notice, I started a website for myself. Somewhere I can send people who are interested. And it cost me nothing.

This is pretty much gonna redefine the word “effusive”. Have a look around the site, it’s a beautiful mess. That’s what I think anyways, and what I want you to think also. There is no C.O.D.E., but for K.A.O.S….

That’s enough about you though! Let’s talk about me! Who? Me?! Well, I get around the traps with my guitar and my big-mouth quite a bit, and every now and then someone will ask,  “Hey Jimmy? Got a CD? Where can I find you? Got a Myspace or a Facefuck page? Wanna fuck my face? A business card? Anything???!?! Do you have fuckin anything AT ALL JIMMY????”

And I always reply, “No.” Or, “No thanks.”

But now I can send them to my BLOG! I don’t know how it is that I can cope with this particular level of techno-evolution, but can’t cope with Television, or face-to-face Skype video calls. But whatever. I made the decision to do this in a hurry. For some reason I felt it was necessary. But I guess it is what it is. I sing you a song, then I send you to my blog. You read as much of my shite as you like or dislike. And the universe totally unravels thereafter.

Hopefully this translates into more people checkin out my music, doing themselves some favours, and then onwards feeding upwards into my totally wholesome plans for total whole world domination and/or salvation. Either or, something’s gotta be done SOON! And don’t worry! Everything is gonna be O.K.! Even if it’s not!

But… you can’t hurry love, and you can’t rush greatness. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And look – they still haven’t finished the place! And it took us millions of years and ears to evolve even this far – where you’re reading what I’m writing because it flew thru the sky to get to you, right in front of your nose. Good things come to those who wait for small packages…

Patience is a virtue and that’s virtually true. Sometimes ye gotta just go fuck it and grab it before someother beastmutha does. And everything can be contradicted, especially if you listen to me for long enough. There’s a way of doing everything where you can get away with anything. Time heals all wounds.

And I, as always, have only a faintly vague idea of what I’m talking about.

Word up. Get down.

— — — —

WHERE IT’S AT…

Word up. This is where it’s at…

NYC = tick. An exciting international collaboration is afoot with Jimmy working with some Brooklyn based boys. Stay tuned to the further development of this and other trans-Pacific affairs… check out the LISTEN UP page for samples of new recordings from the July Catskill Mountains sessions…

M-Town = tick tock. The 7th Annual “Wash Winter’s Willies Away With Whiskey” festival at the Tote on Sunday 31 July was a roaring good time. There’s a link to a YouTube video on THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE page of this website to a live clip of the last song of Clinkerfield’s set. Furthermore, check out www.washwinterswilliesawaywithwhiskey.cum for the Facebook event page with links to great photos from the day (thanks Tim!) and snippets of the live recording as they come to hand.

And now Jimmy’s Wonderful Life reconvenes at home base. All sorts of exciting things are on the horizon, almost as exciting as all the crazy things that are happening down on the level plains in the valley… Again, check out the LISTEN UP page for these live recordings, amongst other things as always.

Check the gigs page for details of all the showbizzo I’m involved with both future and past. ANNOUNCING: The Miserable Little Bastards album WILL be available on vinyl in October. This year! 2011! YEAH. Email if you’re interested in pre-ordering to secure a copy via post.

And looking slightly further ahead… I will settle into Spring with a Tuesday evening residency at the Labour In Vain for the month of Septicmember. Make it rain!

xoxo, Jim

Jimmy Stewart’s Wonderful Life Begins in New York City!

So I’m in New York City today. It’s Thursday 9th June, 2011. It’s 4 in the arvo. It’s gotta be about 40 degrees celsius with 1 million percent humidity. That’s more than 100!!! Sweltering. But the weather really suits my style. Shorts and that’s about it. I’m here, skippin over the ocean like a stone, for the next 6-7 weeks. My wonderful friend Laura Sheedy is dozing on her bed just over there with a wet towel on her face. I’m at her place for now. In Park Slope, Brooklyn. Laura is the curator of the Invisible Circus Artist Residence program that I’ve been invited to work in as part of my journey through the USA this year. For the next six sick weeks I’ll be writing and recording, contemplating millions of light years of evolution and decay, and drinking tea in the AM and wine in the PM in Invisible Circuseses cottage in the Catskill Mountains. I have no idea where I’m gonna be in two hours time.

(postnote: 2 hrs later I was in a TexMex joint on 5th Ave eating $2.50 Taco’s & drinkin Mexican beer whilst watchin a crazy storm roll in, blowin all the trash & humans & trashy humans and all the other rubbish around. Another 2 hrs later and I’ve had a big ol fashioned jet lag drag snooze and sweat followed by a cold shower and now about to head out to a show in hip-happening W’Burg with Laura. I have no idea where I’m gonna be in 2 hours time)

(postnote#2: 2 hrs later I was at the show we were heading to, in a warehouse venue called Big Sky Works in W’Burg, watching an incredibly hilarious show by the internationally acclaimed Wau Wau Sisters. They STARTED the show stark naked as the day they were born. Where the feck do you go from that???! Well… let me tell you where they went… For their finale they somehow managed to pluck me and Farzin – another poor fortunate sod from Melbourne who is now and forever my brother for life – up onto the stage where Adrienne and Tania Wau Wau somehow managed to relieve us of our garments, then dress us in red tu-tu’s, blonde wigs, and lipstick, and then they proceeded to do stark naked handstands on top of us whilst we were lying on the floor laughing hysterically, and then they ducked off with our clothes, came back and finished the show dressed and posing as the two bewildered Aussie’s who didn’t know what had hit them. THEY took the mickey out of US!!! And we were still dressed in fkn tu-tus!!! They managed to achieve this in about 3 fast and furious minutes. And somehow, people from the audience went on to also congratulate US on the show afterwards! Sheeeeeeeeit man! http://www.wauwausisters.com)

Adjacent to this residency in the mountains, you can find me at the Anyway Cafe until 24 July. It’s simply the best teensy little madarse Russian gyspy vodka bar in what I know of the Northern Hemisphere. Every Sunday from 8pm, 2-3 sets of Jimmy solo, with whoever else shows up. The first one I played on Sunday 12 June was too much fun. It’s quiet at 8 pm, and the audience consists only of Kimba the beautiful bar beaaatch, Jonny who brought the microphone lead down in the absence of one, and a drunk Russian passer-by called Ihor with his two dogs who are all howling along to my wailing. Then by 1 am I’m just winding up my fourth set and the tiny joint is full of crazy bastards still shouting for MORE vodka, MORE songs, and more more more! Providing I don’t die of chilli vodka and beef stew poisoning, or elope to the mother-country with one of the hottest and toughest Russian vodka bargals in the universe (or crumple from the maddening heartache and fear), then I’ll be propping up the bar there most other days (34 E 2nd St, near corner of 2nd Avenue, in the East Village, near the 2 Av subway stop). For some reason these crazy Russians are happy to have me back to play every week whenever I’m in town. A pretty sweet deal. Try the Pelmeni!