I always knew what you were

I'm back from the beach, and while it rained about 75% of the time it was great - actually I kinda think it made it easier for me to chill out while it was raining because we were practically chained indoors as it bucketed down something torrential, so I just sat around, listened to some scales and watched The Brady Bunch wrapped up in a woollen blanket, looking outside at the ocean every now and again just happy that it was there and I was there close to it. 

I did a lotta reading too, annihilating a book in the first day (The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, emotionally indulgent but deliciously good, not quite as good as Looking for Alaska but still, good good) and taking my Nanna to the two bookshops in the little beach town we call second-home. My Nanna doesn't walk around much anymore because of continuing back and knee issues and needs someone to help her around, especially around people and stairs and stuff like that. Helping her get around this weekend made me feel especially lucky and blessed to have a functioning body, one that can run, dance, jump, and do all manner of things that I probably shouldn't force it to do. Goodness knows I'm not really a very good example of a well adjusted teen with healthy body image; I spend a lotta time criticising my body for being too fat here, or weirdly muscly there, or too freckly here or not bony enough there. But at the end of the day, I have a heart and lungs and legs that can keep up with me when I run for an hour along the beach and I don't need someone to hold my hand just to get up a few steps. I am very lucky.

Speaking of running, I pride myself on my 'running' playlist that I listen to when I'm, well, running. It consists of 122 songs spanning a wide variety of genres, and it has the perfect ratio of EMOTIONAL running songs versus JOYFUL running songs. Let me explain. 

Songs like THIS: 

make you want to run because they make you sad/angry/nostalgic and you want to run until your little heart overloads with feeling and exertion. Great for sprints, moments like let's see how fast this thing can go-o in Delilah by The Dresden Dolls (first song above) is perfect for crying and running at the same time. If you have extreme feelings like me, use them to your fitness advantage. Seriously. 

Whereas songs like THIS:

make you want to run because they are upbeat and make you so happy you could run forever and ever. These are the kind of songs that make you feel good about yourself and you can turn them up really loud and forget about all the ways your body jiggles when you run and just run and be joyful and thankful because you CAN run and you feel strong and powerful! 

I do not run fast by anyone's standards, in fact watching me jog, puffy and sweaty, must be one of the great comedic instances in this world. But I do run for an hour or so most days, or go to the gym, and I owe a fair bit of my ability to do that to this carefully-selected music that persuades me to go. Plus, having headphones on during a workout means that no one talks to me and I don't have to talk to anyone and that's good because usually I'm too red and too out of breath and seeing too many stars to deal with social interaction during a run. 

.

Just a quick one before I leave this morning.

I, along with everyone else, have been watching the Jill Meagher case for the past few days and was extremely saddened by the outcome of the investigations. When things like this happen so close to home - I was playing a gig on the same road the same night the crime occurred - it grips us frighteningly. I've caught the last train home by myself a few times and it always makes me feel edgy. What really upsets me is the fact that it shouldn't. It should be safe to catch public transport at any time of the day or night. It should be safe to walk along Sydney Rd, a main, busy, social hotspot of a road, on a weekend day or night.It makes me terribly sad to know that a life had to be lost and wasted to bring this issue to the forefront of the media. We are not safe and it isn't right. My mum and dad always warn me about it, 'never find yourself alone', but I usually laugh it off with the fake bravado of someone who is actually anxious about going out. I've always been cautious and smart about that kind of stuff but it seems to me that you can do all the right things, and still make silly mistakes that can cost you. 

And I know there are millions of lives wasted all the time, as a result of war, crime, cruelty, all that horrific stuff that we pretend doesn't happen on a daily basis. Not one person's life is more important than anothers', not one family's grief for their loved ones is more or less than anothers'. We don't forget about all the terrible things that happen, and how sick and unwell and terrible some humans are, but we don't fully acknowledge them until they happen close to home. 

It's not right, it's not right, it's so far from OK. 

And something that is also upsetting me, about as much as all that is, is the backlash that I've been reading on the internet - pages on Facebook like 'Publicly hang Adrian Ernest Bayley'. I have the same doubts about our legal system as most other people I know do but the fact that there are pages and pages of comments like He needs to be dry fisted up his ass over and over! I think his getting a kick out of it the low life scub bag dog! and Castration should be mandatory makes me overwhelmingly sad. 


Let him spend his life in jail and leave it at that. There is so, so much anger in the world and, of course, it's granted in this instance because his crime was, to say the very least, atrocious. But these comments, they do nothing, except spark the public's mob mentality; these comments do nothing except disrespect the victim's family and their grief, and make things terribly worse by fanning the flames of a horrific anger that seems to reside in society, flaring up at times like this.  

Bury your sorrow in a (goon) sack

Here is a picture of me being me, at home early while all my friends are still out drinking and rolling joints and trying to do smoke rings. As promised it was a fun night but I am just not made for these times. I miss my man, I miss not caring about how many drinks I've had and I am tired of thinking and I am exhausted from wanting things so badly and working so hard all the time. 

Tonight my dear friend said in a drunken slur, 'everything's gonna be alright!' - I half smiled, half believing him. One day I won't have to try and find reasons to think that everything will be OK anymore, it'll just be so true that I'll take it for granted. Ya know? Urgh whatta stupidly heavy day!

But it's all alright; tomorrow morning I am going to the beach. I might blog from there depending on internet and all that stuff, but if not, I will catch you on the flip. I've been really happy with how people have been responding to Frida too, thanks for all the lovely words. And all the new traffic to this blog over the past week or so, I am so excited about you. 

Party hardy party safe! x

Tragically hip

THE NEWS I HAVE BEEN LAMELY PROMOTING IS READY TO BE ANNOUNCED everyone so hold on to your hats!

FRIDA is the name of my latest art-pop project. I write fun songs about sad things. I clap and play the melodica and toy piano and play my keyboard on the 'Surf's Up!' organ tone setting and sing my own harmonies and cry and eat Weetbix and read my old diaries for inspiration. I think you will like it, I really hope that you do. 

HERE IS THE LINK: www.triplejunearthed.com/Frida

I had a fun night tonight but I have a fun night lined up for tomorrow too so maybe I will blog about them both tomorrow or the next day. I know you're just DYING to hear all about my fun nights but sorry you will just have to wait OK. xxx

Below my feet

It must be coming on summer, because Mumford and Sons have brought out a new album and man alive, it's cooking with gas.

And an old classic because hardly any of the songs off the new album are on the 'tubes yet: 

I remember those huge singalongs at parties in like 2010 to Little Lion Man; arms swung heavy around friends, practically weeping with feeling and yelling 'FUCKED IT UP' like it was a big deal and everything. Oh.  

In other news I got a postcard from Lewis today, and it was just the loveliest thing to find sitting in my mailbox. I love postcards, and letters, anything handwritten really, because I think we're missing that in our modern computer robot lives today...listen to me! I sound like a pensioner. You can kinda see the white postcard in this picture of my flower crown collection (I am just out of control). 

A poem I found today that I like a lot. A lot a lot. The idea of a person being taken in doses or all at once is scary. And I really like the lines waking to your smile is like having sunshine in my bed every morning, warmth radiating from your side of mattress. I don't know, I have this fascination with beds at the moment; all of my new lyrics have been based around the bed, sleeping, dreaming...cotton sheets, cold pillows, curling up in a little ball on someone else's sofa bed. 

Cherokee

I have two things to say today: 

Last night I made this crown with rabbits on it. I want to cry because they're just so cute and I've finally put them to good use. This is a picture of me crying because too cute. 

And the second thing is one of those cool exciting things I was talking about a couple of posts ago (I'm still waiting on the other thing I have in mind so just WAIT GUYS I'm sorry I know this is lame) - I had my photo taken and interview done and everything for this cool initiative called the Banyule 100, where 100 young people doing cool things around my area are interviewed and photographed and appear on this blog and maybe even in a BOOK one day. Cool huh? If you want to read here is the link. 

Also, mm-hmm: 

I really love you

Today, I clean. 

I had quite a few other things on my list of things that I REALLY MUST REALLY HAVE TO RIGHT NOW DO before the end of the break that were on top of this monumental task, but after a trying past few days and a few panicked moments I decided that the time has come to begin the ridiculous bump out of the installation of clothes and books and fake animals that takes up 87% of spare surfaces in my room right now. I'm getting there.

It feels good, to rid myself of all this junk. My mum says it's good for the soul and I could feel my spirits lifting as I did the same things over and over; folding, hanging clothes, running down the stairs, then up again with bags headed to the op shop, piling books, listening to funny podcasts that are just funny and don't let me think about anything else.

The break is going just as fast as I was afraid it would and I'm chip chip chipping away at the pile of work that I have to to before summer. I love uni very much but with uni and band and gigs and writing and homework and friends and practice and exercise and teaching and all the other stuff that fills in the in-betweens, like food and sleep and worrying about things, I have a very full up time ahead of me for the next few weeks. But I really do like it like that, I gotta tell ya!

The lucky one

We had a pretty funny gig last night. Despite the infamous Melbourne DANCE FLOOR GAP (the awkward 'dance floor' space between a static audience and the band during a gig) tragically swooping all over our d/f, it was fun. I like driving in my friend's car, making wrong turns and watching him take his hands off the wheel to air-drum to 'In the Air Tonight' on the freeway. 

We played a relatively new set and everything went nicely, apart from some serious issues with a mysterious plane-like noise that rattled parts of our music into oblivion, and an equally mysterious smell frighteningly reminiscent of gas in the overheated band room...

In other news I am going to THE BEACH at the end of this coming week and I can't WAIT. I miss the ocean very much when I'm so far from it all the time! When I get my license (soon...soon...) I'm going to drive to the beach whenever whenever WHENEVER I want and it will be the most wonderful existence I could ask for. 

There's a world

Tour tour noise noise! A pic of Lew's packed bags ready for tour times...

It's funny how before a relatively big trip you can see the anticipation in people before they go. I mean that sounds pretty duh but I saw it in my best friend Grace before she left the country earlier this year, and I saw it in Lewis over the last few days...there's a lot of standing stock-still in the middle of rooms, eyes rolling upwards as they go through lists of things in their head. A lot of under-breath muttering and sometimes hand wringing and my job is usually to just sit there or follow the travellers around, putting things in bags or carrying toast and coffee and naming items aloud as a second-checklist. It's almost like a relief to see them go, OBVIOUSLY not because I WANT to see them go, but because when they're on their way, the anticipation loses its ability to transform into nerves or anxiety the way it does when you're just waiting for something to arrive. Or something. It makes me empathetically-nervous, watching people I love in that funny state, in the limbo between close-to finished preparation and departure. 

But all that aside! Tour has begun and it will be so amazing! Go (see links below)! 

I have been mainly working today and preparing for gigs and projects over the next few weeks. I have some work to share with you in a few days time, maybe next week. I'm excited/nervous for it but I think you'll like it and it feels good to be writing/uploading at the moment. Keep an eye/ear out. 

You're skin and bones

I've been saying lots of goodbyes recently, mainly to friends from uni as they head homeward bound interstate, and for adventures overseas, for the semester holidays, and to the lovely the Cactus Collective as they are about to embark on their first national tour this week. Each farewell takes its little toll as each traveller leaves this place for now but at the same time, I'm looking forward already to the tidal wave of nice reunions in a couple of weeks or so. I say goodbye to Lewis tomorrow night, getting my first taste of romance in this business; where I'm totally accustomed to using my romantic ventures as songwriting material, I'm not used to the practical side of musicians dating - I've only just realised extended touring absences are inevitable! 

Every time I have to say goodbye to someone, I become a superstitious, ancient  grandmother. I just wring my hands, wary of any adventure that takes a loved one further than a 50km radius from my arms, plead with them to 'stay safe, stay safe!' and wrack my brain for any more words of warning to impart even though I am the least-well-travelled (worst travelled?) person I know ('watch out for...monkeys? Malaria? Australians in Bintang singlets?') Jerry Seinfeld has this bit about what you say at the end of a date when you know you're never going to see that person ever again: 'Take care now. Take care. Now. Because I won't be there to take care of you, so you should really take care, NOW." I think that's what I'm trying to get at, when I say goodbye to people before extended separations; when they are within my line of sight and my arms' reach, I can take care of them to some degree, but when they're away, for some reason, I forget that pretty much everyone I know is more than qualified and capable to take care of themselves, thank you very much...

I really like the videoclip to 'Yellow'. It makes me want to cry forever. Here are some pictures from where I'd rather be:

I'm a raven

Last night I did my makeup like Suzy in Moonrise Kingdom. It was really fun!!!! I mean it's not exactly the same but you feel me right... 

We were talking about summer today, with my sister reminiscing about m&m McFlurries at my Nana's house (she has air-conditioning) - and what was at first a lovely trip down a sweaty memory lane, turned sadly into a relaying of the events of Black Saturday, the devastating bushfires that happened that same summer. I live in a neighbouring suburb to the 'affected' areas - I use quotation marks there because the effect of those fires spread so much further than the fires did themselves, and have lasted to this day, and will last for many years to come. 

I remember the day very, very clearly. It was so hot, and so windy, and everyone was on edge; all the doors in my house were flying open and closed as my Dad stood on the front step watching our beautiful trees sway violently and frighteningly out of control. I had just come back from rehearsal at school and I remember looking up and seeing a dirty sky, red, and grey, and cloudy and angry. I remember Dad crossing his arms and telling us to pack our bags because we were leaving our house, 'just in case'. I remember picking up a big pile of my diaries and grabbing Soda by the scruff of his neck and leaving our house in a terrible rush. My family and I were lucky - our house was totally fine, our close friends' houses and families were totally fine.

We were so lucky. Friends lost their houses, lifetimes' worth of memories, and our community lost so many loved ones. The most amazing thing to me is just how many people knew someone who died, or lost loved ones, or lost their house. It was just an endless line of connection and everyone was so sad for everyone else. Our school lost old teachers; a student who had just finished year 12, and his parents, lost their lives. I will never, ever forget their memorial service as long as I live because I don't think I've ever been so close to so many reasons to be sad. 

Things are still very sad, y'know. I sung at a bushfire memorial service last year and I've done a LOT-ta singing in my time but I don't think I've ever been so nervous; a sea of grave faces and big black respectful suits, clasped hands and bowed heads and low murmuring. I could barely breathe for sadness there, let alone sing. But I did it and it was fine, sad, but fine. And Mum had to do a memorial floral  arrangement just last week for an unveiling of a list of the victims of Black Saturday. Things are still so raw.

Urgh. I had to talk about that, sorry! I promise I'll be brighter next time. 

Thinking of u

'bury me all through the ground' you said. i'll kick through the ashes, hope they sober up my head

Where is my mind?

I like shops that stay open 24 hours a day, like those kebab shops in the city with plastic chairs and plastic tables and a TV from 1990 with illegal foreign satellite shows on. When I'm lying in bed at night I like to know that somewhere, someone will be awake all night. Supermarkets closing, all those fluorescent lights being turned off and the aisles being empty and wide, that really freaks me out. I don't like being at shopping centres around closing time, like 5.30pm, I hate those big grille things that they drag down over the shop doors, I hate it when the assistants drag those circular stand display things inside for the night. When I was little I used to be afraid of being locked inside the stores after they shut. Once, around Christmas, my Dad and my sister and I were frantically running around Myer looking for presents when the announcement came over that the shop would soon be closing and to please make our purchases and leave the store - Dad, being Dad, was in no hurry to obey a loudspeaker announcement but me, being the nervous type that I always have been, became so anxious at the idea of being LOCKED INSIDE that I have never forgotten that feeling, even though I couldn't have been older than four at the time. I like petrol stations and I like 24 hour gyms, all lit up at 3am, and I like Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights when people don't sleep, when I can be in town at any time and people are there, dancing their way into morning and sleepy days. I like lying in bed and listening to the sound of my Mum laughing at something on TV; I like that so much that sometimes I go to bed especially early so that I can sleep in the knowledge that my family are still awake, just downstairs, giggling at some stupid show or at Soda or at each other. 

How will I know?

Ranty depressants

So today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and at the risk of a) leaping onto a snowballing bandwagon and b) repeating myself, I just want to say like two things! I know lots and LOTS of perfectly beautiful, well-adjusted, hilarious, intelligent people who can't sleep at night. You don't have to wear a doctor's diagnosis around your neck to know when something isn't right, y'know, bearing in mind that being sad is different to actually having a mental illness, which is just as real as any other illness a body can get. But if the doctor has looked over at you from behind a clipboard and said the d-word, it's better to ask for help than to keep waiting for a problem to fix itself. Asking for help as in, more than just seeing a doctor one time, or a counsellor or something one time. If life has taught me one thing, it's that you have to work hard to achieve the things you want. And if it's taught me more than one thing, it's that training your brain to treat you kindly is something that you never stop working, and HARD, for. Your happiness might move in cycles, up and down, and that's natural as anything. But if you are depressed, or sad, talking helps. Forever. Always. Never shut up about your feelings (write in your diary though so you don't gnaw people's ears off). I rely on mine to write songs with.

Well now that's outta the way, Nebraskatak was played on PBS today! I had a little dance in the uni library when got a text saying so. Then I called my mum. It's pretty weird to know that we've been on those airwaves, poking our little heads into a pounding music industry. If you want to listen you can download here.

I've been listening to Ke$ha today, like seriously. It's pretty bad. I only like her sad songs. 

:( :( :( oh gurl

I really like the sentence while you were sleeping even though I'm like 97% sure I saw a One Direction fan fiction with that title around the darker side of the internet one cool Friday night at home in bed with Soda. I wrote a song with that title once but I can't for the life of me remember how it goes! Maybe a rewrite is in order. The idea of deciding something while someone beautiful is sleeping next to you is divine to me, and I think that's happened about three times in my little life so far. Watching someone you love sleep, curled under the same doona, sometimes so absolutely quiet you can hear your heartbeat and feel theirs, and getting that sudden clarity of things making sense, falling together. I no ur hearin' me Ke$ha. 

The same deep water as you

Isn't it funny when you look at old pictures, or, maybe not so much old, but from a different time, and you feel so much of what you were then, like a huge sweepy wave? I remember the evening that this photo was taken so clearly and all in technicolour; wine out of a plastic glass and singing happy birthday to no one and dancing on rooftops and not being afraid of falling over the edge. Ah, how things have changed, who we've lost but what we've gained...

Here are some illustrations from Shirley Barber, because I bought a book of hers today for my little cousins and remembered how lovely her work was when I was little (and still is to this day). I'm listening to Disintegration by The Cure in a weird juxtapositioning of beautiful things. Oh. 

If that helps you

Again, a day of not really having much to tell you. I'm buried under uni and band, unfinished songs and looming exams, approaching gigs and broken flower crowns ('I must have flowers, always, and always.') and chinese food and Heath Ledger in '10 Things I Hate About You'. I am still walking and watching with that sweet clarity that has suddenly become me, of course with on and off days but with some kind of strange assurance of the knowing that everything will turn out OK. 

Lewis and I saw Wes Anderson's latest 'Moonrise Kingdom' last night and it was just beautiful. It's always worth seeing his films because they ALWAYS look so glorious, and lush, and he consistently chooses the most beautiful music, or has someone who chooses the most beautiful music for him, or something...anyway his films sound and look wonderful always. My favourite part of Moonrise Kingdom was when Suzy and Sam and the other scouts were standing on the ledge of the church during the hurricane, and lightening flashed and lit them up for the shortest time, and then they were gone...

^^^^ DEFINITELY TRYING THIS MAKEUP OH MY OH ^^^^

Anyway yes, definitely see this movie! And all his others, I'm slowly working my way through. 'The Royal Tenenbaums' is great and so is 'The Darjeeling Limited', if you need a starting block...

Look at me, recommending films...for someone who can count all the films they've seen on one hand, that's a bit rich!

Seinfeld is playing in earnest before me and I'm drinking chamomile tea at 8.50PM on a Friday night for the first time in several weeks. This is kind of nice, although right now I do miss my man's arms, and my friends' giggling, and those mild nights in beer gardens with smoke tumbling from mouths and stars shining placidly above our heads. Oh nostalgia! But it is cold, and windy, and the internet is humming comfortably and my eyes are heavy and my wallet is sadly empty. So staying home is probably wise for tonight anyway. 

Thing to be thankful for when going to art school #72:

Today, when our three hour class just finished, and we were all stretching, just trying to get the feeling back into our legs, my friend called me to the back of the room. The guy next to her had done this beautifully detailed little drawing of the back of my head, flowers and all, in black biro. I didn't get a photo but I wish I had.

That's all.

Live without the sunlight, love without your heartbeat

I spent the day sitting looping things and trying to squeeze melancholy out of my contentedly claimed heart.

http://soundcloud.com/eilishgilligan/ludo-call-the-rocks

Sleep now, under my skin

Well wow, it's been a kickin' past few days. 

So yeah like I said, the universe somehow sent me to the Beach Boys on Friday night, which was a funny experience. I mean the sound was quite remarkable, their voices quite a lot better than I was expecting and their seven-piece backing band was shit hot. Lewis and I sat side by side, surveying the grand sea of middle aged to pension-ated heads before us, swaying tentatively in time as Mike Love creepily pulled the same dance moves he did fifty years ago...I don't know. Something absurd, something uneasy about Brian Wilson in a black hoodie, looking bewildered and sad at the piano, something not quite right about 70 year old men singing songs that are defined by their youthfulness and innocence. But like I said, the sound was great. So I don't know. Either way it was fun to be the youngest people there, my friend Adam standing confidently and unassisted in the middle of the arena seating, dancing quite vehemently as we followed suit, being rowdy and silly in a crowd of old old old. 

Remember how I said we played at Red Bennies the other night? Well there's some VIDEOS to prove it! Alright! 

It's weird to think that there are people out there who don't actually know me, but read my blog, and have never seen me, like, move, or talk, or something, and those videos are the first thing they see...that and the stupid pictures I take of myself on Photobooth in front of Disneyland. But anyway, that's me, at an unflattering angle, with wonky fake eyelashes and weird dance moves. Me. How ya doin'. 

I also wrote this for uni. It's not done yet, but I do quite like it, in that way that you like things when you first do them. Ask me tomorrow and you might get a different answer. http://soundcloud.com/eilishgilligan/ragdoll-demo 

What else? Well, the sun was out today, and has been out for the past week or so, I feel like I've suddenly shaken off some big winter and can't believe I stayed with it for so long. I've been running and wearing high heels and giggling and making faces with four year olds and catching the train with footy crowds and thinking how lovely that is. How lovely everything is and how lucky I am. The universe has been so good to me and I am suddenly perfectly aware of this!

Here are some pictures of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, because the song Oh Yoko! is beautiful.