I have recently returned from a fair bit of solo travel that included time with friends, family, and some study. There is something special about travelling alone that is uniquely thought provoking. I am reminded of a quote that I’m not able to determine the provenance of but that has long rattled around my head – ‘there is no loneliness quite like the loneliness of a long drive home late at night, having visited worlds that no one else will ever know.’ I’m confident the same can be said of a long overnight flight returning home, too. This mix was recorded live in Vancouver on the first weeken ..read more

I celebrated a milestone recently. To mark the occasion, we spent a few days in sunny Brisbane. While it wasn’t a long trip, it was a relaxing trip, and an inspiring one, too. In such a context it is hard not to reflect with some depth on one’s mortality and one’s time and place in the world. Thankfully, the trip involved plenty of walking, plenty of time in nature, plenty of time in the ocean, and plenty of time doing not-very-much. Good for the soul, I suspect. This is episode 117 of Music For Small Audiences. Recorded live the weekend before the trip, it’s a laid back look at some of the mo ..read more

Sometimes it’s important to play to your strengths. Sometimes it’s important to work on your weaknesses. For some reason the former always sounds much more appealing than the latter. After a nearly ten year break, I have returned to study. I am hoping some of the topics covered will be within my existing areas of knowledge. At the same time, I both look forward to and fear the parts that are at the moment completely foreign to me. Time will tell I suppose. This is the 116th installment of Music For Small Audiences. At just under four hours, it was recorded live on March 2024. As befits my curr ..read more

Never trust a thought that occurs indoors, the saying goes. We are into the final third of summer here in Australia, and at the risk of tempting the sun gods, I daresay the weather has started to stabilise – as far as Melbourne weather ever does, anyways. The combination of pleasant weather and still-long-enough evenings makes for plenty of time to be outdoors and introspective, while the ever-shortening days also serve as a reminder that soon enough we’ll be back to heaters and scarves. Some quality tunes in this one. I hope you enjoy ..read more

As the year comes to a close, it seems natural to reflect on the year that has passed, and where it has taken us. Are we where we intended to be? Where we wanted to be? Or are we somewhere else, somewhere better defined as the logical destination, given the decisions we made over the course of the year? So I suppose too that it’s natural to cast a critical eye to the year ahead. What needs to change – and what needs to continue – if we are to hit closer to the mark of optimistic intent, come twelve months from now? As always, the answer (for me at least) lies in balancing the needs and wants ..read more

I have recently returned from a few weeks in Canada. The trip included a weekend with some very good friends, during which I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to play an extended set on what is probably my favourite pair of speakers in the world. Set up well in a great sounding loft conversion in Toronto's inner west, it was a chance to reconnect, recharge, and recycle the same stories that seem to get funnier each time they are told. This is the live recording of the set that I played on that Friday night a few weeks ago. It includes a few of the vinyl records I took as gifts, a r ..read more

I’ve long been intrigued by the end user experience of modern medicine, and what can at times feel to the layperson like a focus on only fixing what is broken. If we are unwell past a certain arbitrary threshold, we receive medical intervention until we are back to baseline. We heal, we rehabilitate, we repair, and we focus on eliminating the negative to bring things back to where they should be, wherever ‘should’ is, and that's it. If the symptoms aren’t serious enough to warrant intervention, we ride them out. But there is an argument to be made that health – both physical and mental – exist ..read more

Much has been said about the importance of time management. When time is tight and competing priorities overlap, it can be easy to succumb to a sense of guilt that things may be missed or not prioritised appropriately. I had a bit of an epiphany from an article I read a few years ago – a lightbulb moment after years of reflecting on how to best manage my time, where I realised that it was just as much my energy that I needed to better manage. Doing stuff is hard, and is made harder by not being in the right headspace for the task or project at hand. Determining what needs to be done against bo ..read more

Negativity can be seductive. As we get older, our awareness seems to build about just how much can go wrong at any given moment – personally, professionally, geopolitically, economically, and physically. It’s easy to be fearful, and the more acutely aware we are of the worst case scenario, the more tempting it can be to jump at shadows or assume the worst. Having taken a month long break from running on account of a strange feeling in my left knee, it was a huge relief to get back out in recent days to find the pain gone. The last time I had an issue with my knee I ended up needing surgery, a ..read more

As I grew up my two older sisters were a constant source of musical guidance and inspiration, taking me to concerts, bringing me records from overseas school trips and keeping me up to speed on the hottest bands across the genre that was then called New Wave. Throughout our early years growing up in suburban Toronto, one radio station in particular was held high as the mythical point source from which all good music came. That station was CFNY, 102.1 FM. Following on from high school some years later, I managed to convince a local synthesizer shop to give me a job in sales. The shop owner beca ..read more