The Good Ship

One of the great things about sailing The Good Ship all over the country is the talented and attractive bands we get to share stages with. And play with, if we’re very lucky.

Then, when it comes time to record, we can remind these individuals about that night in the band room of the Great Northern in Newcastle… and suddenly we have a guest fiddle player on our album!

Last weekend, we welcomed the dashing Mr Michael Bridges to guest at our Joynt show. He totally rocked. Turns out, he’s not a bad tambo player either.  The crowd was wild – and all deserve a knighthood for enduring the tropical conditions.

The very next day, with no respect for excesses of the night before, we locked him in a stinking hot Queenslander to add glorious fiddly goodness to a few tracks. He also laid down a ghostly accompaniment to ‘No Good Deed’ on the saw.  The SAW! THEN we made him juggle for his supper. T’was a good day – and there’s video!

As folklore goes, it’s not a Queensland album unless there’s crickets doing backing vocals.  We’re pretty proud of Brisbane music, so we made sure to include plenty of the little tikes.

Viola and cello parts were added by our guest goth string section, Richard Grantham and Wayne Jennings, who proved that the little black dots actually mean something. Their mandatory dress code was complete with black fibreglass instruments.

We had no dirt on the ever-charming Mr Ben Franz, however he graced us with his pedal steel prowess regardless. Get that man a bottle o whiskey!

Next up – a family dinner to plan the next phase of proceedings. May the cider flow!

13 January 2012

We’re on a bout of shore leave, out of our natural watery environs and undertaking some high altitude training in the alpine village of Mt Nebo. We’ve left the sights and smells of the city far below us, not to mention abandoning all hope of getting phone reception.

Our host is the avuncular Neil Coombe, who welcomed the motley Shippers back to the White Room Studio with open arms. Neil has plenty of machines that go ping, and he’s helping mould our caterwaulings into the next Good Ship release.

You heard it here first people – album number two is go – this is not a drill!

You can’t really get a much better place to record – trees everywhere, a soundtrack of native birds and inquisitive lorikeets at every meal break. The catering was top notch, with a tri-daily masterchef keeping everyone with full bellies and smiling faces.

 ~~~

15 January 2012

It wasn’t all smooth sailing – Jimmy’s computers decided to go on strike (to protest SOPA, presumably), but we pushed on well into the night cranking out the tunes. Curiously, we’ve all been afflicted with a collective auditory hallucination – a rhythmic clicking sound. The crew hasn’t slept in days*, and I fear we’ll run out of amber nectar by sundown, but spirits remain high.

After an epic weekend, the album is beginning to take shape. Neil worked his little heart out – and we owe him the world (and perhaps a pepper grinder). With smiling faces, everyone managed to descend the mountain safely in the dead of night.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress – next stop is welcoming the debonair Michael Bridges and Ben Franz back to Brisbane to add their fiddly/slidy goodness to the mix.

See you Saturday at the Joynt!

*Note to self – Must read up on Anti-Snoring Surgical Techniques.

The Good Ship, Brisbane’s favourite (and only) folk rock sea shanty porno country masters, are pleased to announce our “Nautical But Nice” Tour. November/December sees us taking our dark and dirty sounds across four states, including two festival spots and culminating in a huge end of year party in our home port of the Zoo. As an early Christmas present we’re giving away our chaotic, carousing cover of the classic tune “What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?” The track will be available free from this website soon!

Catch us at the following shows:

Thurs 27 October 2011
Dowse Bar, Paddington QLD (Daz and John plus various guest crew acoustic)
8pm, free

Sun 30 October 2011
Brisbane Sounds Launch
The Legion Club, Fortitude Valley QLD
12pm, $7

Sat 5 November 2011
Pacific Hotel, Yamba NSW
9pm, $5

Sun 6 November 2011
The Bearded Dragon, Tamborine QLD
2pm, free

Sat 12 Nov, Mt Warning Hotel, Uki NSW
### sorry, this show has been cancelled ###

Sun 13 November 2011
Nimbin Hotel, Nimbin NSW
2pm, free

Sat 19 November 2011
The Cornish Arms, Brunswick VIC
8pm, free
w/ Jules Sheldon & Tim Woods

Sun 20 November 2011
‘Dark Comforts’ at Feast Festival
Light Square, Adelaide SA
6.30pm, $20
w/ Silver Sircus and Bertie Page Clinic

Fri 25 November 2011
‘Mullum Music Festival’
Ex Services Club, Mullumbimby NSW
7:30pm, day passes $56

Fri 2 December 2011
The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD
8pm, $12
w/ The Snowdroppers & The Mouldy Lovers

Sat 3 December 2011
The Loft, Chevron Island QLD
8pm, $10
w/ Rattlehand & Evan Mantteri

Ahoy, scurvy dogs! It be me, Seaman Wally, to have broken into the Captain’s cabin and found his neglected ship’s log, and to be adding to it for another chapter of our sordid history to be recorded.

Our earlier voyages came to an end with the wallowing Murder Ballads, in the wintery month of July. Soon after, three shipmates fled on a longboat, chasing a wanton harlot across the shores of Europe on a sortie of their own. The less said of those dark, dark days the better. Back in our own fair port, there has been action aplenty. Of the ship’s medic; she has been surveying ports of Gold and Towns afar, saving the lives of wretched unworthy souls from their wounds earned of drunkenness and their poxes caught from unclean whores. The other Shipettes – those Kats of Original Recipe and Zinger flavours – have busied themselves refurbishing the ladies’ quarters – the deck we call the foxhole – along with those other reprobate stowaway women in their layered skirts and gaudily painted faces. Of the dirty kitchen-hand Seaman Harrasser; he has been spied making trips to a particular house of ill repute on the docks far too often, and we fear he has lost his heart to a lady of the night. And of my good self; I have spent my time below deck, crafting yet another weapon of mass percussion to belt upon the rhythm like the undulation of the waves we traverse.

But what, you might ask, of our Cap’n Daz? And a fair question it is. I find at his desk, charts of seas verily surging for our travels, and maps of ports ripe for our pillage. He plans a voyage for scenes of mayhem in locales both old and new, traversing the east coast of this penal colony we call a home, plotting the following skirmishes:

• Fri 26 Aug – The Soundlounge, Currumbin QLD, with Mick Thomas, the former captain of that crusty and unseaworthy vessel Weddings parties Anything;
• Fri 2 Sep – Grand Poobah, Hobart TAS, with The Sin & Tonics;
• Sat 3 Sep – The Wesley Anne, Northcote VIC, with The Bon Scotts;
• Sun 4 Sep – Labour In Vain, Fitzroy VIC , with The Backwoods Creatures;
• Sat 10 Sep – QPAC Wunderbar, Brisbane Festival, South Bank QLD;

before charting a course through the summer months terrorising the good folk of Yamba, Lennox Heads, Nimbin, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Mullumbimby, before triumphantly returning to port in Brisbane to bring the mainsail down on a long year’s journey.

And now, as I hear the captain’s rusty key turn in his lock, I must make myself scarce, for fear of a beating – or worse, a rogering. I bid you safe travels on the turgid sea of life.