The Life and Times of Peter Green
updated 12 July 2026
 “The Art Room”. (Kalorama 2026) |
June 22ndI like Mondays (Sorry Bob) especially during Winter. A tiny sleep in till you hear the sound of the recycle truck and the green waste truck crashing around outside. Midnight gives me her "do we have to get up" look.I have coffee with Al and some of the other locals turn up- Mark, Sue, Ian, Bev, Leisa etc. Our little gathering. We are all oddballs. I like that. I have the craving for dutch salted liquorice and drive up the road to the main Olinda shops. Mountain of Sweets isn't opened yet so I look in the windows of all the other shops. Elfhame the Wicca shop and Dr Quirkys Emporium are next door- some of my favourite shops. I chat to Brandon the owner of Elfhame. I admire their worship and ritual area. I visit Dr Quirkys looking for presents for Mark, but nothing catches my eye or simply their abundance of stuff overwhelms me. The Sweet shop opens and some dutch liquorice for me and some dark chocolate coconut rough for Mark. Back home by 11.00 and work in the office. I have an urge to play nothing but Transvision Vamp all day , so I do. Such fine albums, I will never get why MCA in the UK refused to release the bands third album "Little Magnets..." it went to #25 here and spent 3 months on the Aussie charts earning them a gold record. Big in NZ and Sweden too. I dig out some photos of yours truly hanging out with Wendy at the ABC. We hit it off straight away , a fun few days. After lunch we are back to the main house photographing some T-shirts for the archives. Not too many as it tends to drive Mark crazy. So much fiddling about, taking mannequins apart, making sure the shirts are void of wrinkles and turning it around to photograph the back. So many tour shirts, it does seem endless. But good to capture the item on film, no one else around the band(s) bother. June 23rdNice to get an email from Neil (Finn). I think my email address got swallowed up into Spam, so it's good he spotted it.It's cold this morning. I worked in the office till 2.30 am so not much sleep. Always bad to use computers just before you go to bed. I find a few Sherbet albums and singles at work. I let my Sherbet loving friend Trudi know as a few of them might be rare because they were the non hit singles. So less sales and less floating about. After we speak it's all over the news that Daryl Braithwaite, Sherbets (ex) lead singer is retiring from playing live. All a bit spooky. We joke that it was Daryl who donated all of his Sherbet singles to the charity. We wish you well Dazza. June 24thI call into Burkes Lookout and a black faced Wallaby is eating grass near my car. I move slowly and talk to him gently and he doesn't hop off. I get close and basically ignore him and he follows me up the track. Eventually he hops away but it is such a nice start to the day.I arrive early at Food Bank as I am leaving early. I fill the boxes and we get them ready for the people of the mountain. I zoom home, get changed and upload today's Markys YouTube Wednesday. We had a lot of requests from fans for more Crowded House from the Sydney EAT concert of 1988. So Mark makes their day and we put 2 more live clips up - Better Be Home Soon and When You Come. He has spent time on them getting them looking and sounding good. The crowd is fantastic too. You can enjoy the 2 clips here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx1gqwNabc0 I head off the mountain and call in and fill up with fuel and some oil for the car. I head to Warrandyte, to the Stonehouse Cafe. As I pull into a car park , my friends Giles and Fenella arrive. Perfect timing for us all. We swap some presents and loads of hugs. Great to see them. Lots of laughing and chatting, and I have to head off. More things to do this afternoon, but they have made my day. I wait till it's 12.01 in New Zealand and we put up a rare video in honour of Tim Finn and his birthday. June 25thHappy 74th Birthday Tim Finn. Tim fans leave heaps of nice comments on our YouTube page , so he will no doubt read all of those.I wake up early again and call into the car wash. It used to be fantastic but the machinery has changed and it's a really crap wash. I'm going to have to hand wash the sides when I get home. Thankfully the roof is ok. I make a note not to use it anymore. Sad to hear that the Skyhooks roadie Ned Kelly passed away last week. We didn't know him but he was part of the Hooks early history. Sad news. June 26thI walk around the yard and try to find enough Winter flowers for our buddy Trudi.As always she arrives on time. So some flowers and a few Sherbet singles for her. We head off to Olinda cafe and are rather spoilt as she buys us lunch. Plus I get a belated birthday present , I've had a few this week. I am so lucky. The fire is burning at the cafe so it is nice and snug , Winter cold outside. No sign of snow yet. I see unemployment fell last month in Australia. 4.3%. I see America has the same unemployment rate, but for the States it is 7.3 + million unemployed, in Australia it is 670,000. I think Englands around 5% now. It's weird I don't know anyone that is unemployed. A nice jump on our Skyhooks1975 twitter (X) account. We doubled the number of followers. The Skyhook Facebook page is around 22,000 followers too. The band still draws a crowd on social media. June 27thThe young girl at the bakery says to me "Happy Pride Month" which made me smile. I wasn't sure if she was gay, was saying it to ol bisexual me or just saying it. Anyway it was cute. Happy Pride Month everyone! There ya go.Good grief, Liberal "leader" Jess Wilson slips out of Melbourne, jumps on a flight and ignores the Deeming-Guy farce. If she was a true leader she would have stood firm, told both of them to stop their shit. No wonder the Liberals have lost 16% of their vote since Wilson became Vic Liberal leader. It's not like I am going to vote Liberal anyway but I do believe each government needs a strong Opposition to hold politicians accountable but the Victorian Liberals are anything but that- they have become a complete joke. Our niece MIM is doing so well in Taekwondo, wonderful to see. Homemade lasagne for dinner- YUM. June 28thSunshine but it offers no warmth. Still I work in the yard. Some Kookaburras visit and hang around me all day. As I am about to head inside they arrive again and bring their baby with them. They feed him some worms from an area I have cleared. I love our aussie wildlife.We are enjoying Tales From The Loop. It's a few years old (2020) - a sci fi television series based on the art book by Simon Stalenberg. It's a bunch of people in a fictional town- Mercer in Ohio. Mercer is home to the Mercer Centre for Experimental Physics, and the underground facility is known as The Loop. The season only has 8 episodes and we are halfway through and really enjoy it. I like that the researchers try to "make the impossible possible" which is funny as that's what Mark and myself say at times in the office. Sad that Amazon didn't renew it for a second season, it's a cool little show. June 29thI am still pushing Joylene from Jimmy and the Boys "Joylenes Address To The Nation". I am determined to get it to reach its target number. "Making the impossible , possible" says Mark. We just need 256 views. So if you are feeling generous and supportive of Markys Videos, please give it a few. Plus Joylene has some funny moments.You can enjoy (and support it) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lki82HSZLyg June 30thFun morning at charity, I added a Darth Vader talking mask and body to my Star Wars /Star Trek display. Every few weeks I change the central display , it's a lot harder than you think coming up with something cool for the Book Cave. We survive on donations. I have an awesome big glass case that I put special items in. I added some Timothy Leary like "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" for the more adventurous. The Book Cave is pretty cool.We still haven't lit a fire, but some cold minus days coming up next week so it's almost time to do so. Ailsa Craig is still snug and we do have old man hot water bottles at night. HA! July 1stI am in shock, July already. When July rolls around I always pick up pace and try and do a few more things - be it yard or art projects. The "To Do" list doubles in size. I need to create more art in a month or so. Some ideas rolling around in my head.Skyhooks on Hey Hey It's Saturday with their #1 hit "Jukebox In Siberia" is Markys YouTube Video this week. So few bands play the same song twice on Hey Hey but Skyhooks did with this one. It ended up being the only Aussie #1 single for 1990. The fans love this, it has 1000 views within minutes and the counter keeps on ticking over. You can enjoy it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF9TCS8CG7Y July 2ndI send the Skyhooks "Jukebox" link to Paul C at Noise 11 music magazine , as he loves the Hooks. Just for him. So he surprises us with a full page article on it. A bit gobsmacked and yes even more people start watching it. Thanks for giving me a mention too Paul.You can enjoy the Noise 11 article here: https://www.noise11.com/news/skyhooks-jukebox-in-siberia-hey-hey-its-saturday-video-20260701 We are loving how "The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart" is filmed, some beautiful imagery. A great cast. The Australian landscape is stunning. A department of health alert for Victoria after heroin was found in both Meth and Cocaine in this state. 1 person dead and several OD's. Not good. I love some of the people who are going to be in ALONE (Australia) 4. This time it's filmed in Sapmi Finland. I met one of the contestants about 8 months ago. Nice guy. Plus there is a girl from our hometown of Wollongong trying to last the distance on the show. It's on SBS on July 15th at 7.30. We are excited. July 3rdA cold morning, the temperatures are dropping up here on Mt D. I keep my eyes open for snow.Midnight gets in a cat fight near the office, Mark breaks them up and the other cat runs away quickly. Midnight is ok, she certainly holds her own. This is her territory and no other cat is going to invade it. Good girl Middy. I decide to go into the charity for a few hours to finish up on some work. I'm in the Book Cave and this young girl is so excited as she finds some Elvis items. I track down a few more obscure things like Elvis VHS tapes and strange shiny Elvis pill boxes. She loved it, so excited and mouths "thank you" as she leaves. That makes me smile. We have some really nice cheesecake for desert and settle in and watch Number 96, Fringe and Tales from the Loop. OK it is true I am strangely attracted to Joshua Jackson from Fringe. Yes Dawson from Dawsons Creek's little mate. There is no truth in the rumour that he recently divorced actress Jodie Turner-Smith as he has a huge crush on me. Sorry Josh I am spoken for. HA! July 4thWell Happy Independence Day to all of our favourite American mates. Sorry you got stuck with Donald the dickhead. Hopefully he will be gone soon. Enjoy your day.I chat to Andrew who LOVES music, at the Olinda Bakery. He keeps pushing me for more stories, I'm certain he is secretly writing a book on me and recording them all. Nice bloke, I love people who adore music. I head to the Art Room in the afternoon, to do some clean up, add a visual installation and even make an effort to chop some wood for our upcoming usage for the fires in the house. It's a big Neon sign that advertises Hot Pizza. It looks great, I get it working. What a good work space. I wear a Mexican wrestlers hood and pretend to chainsaw for a social media photo, as one does! July 5thA chilly night, it drops to zero, my nose feels cold in the morning.I hike to the look out and the wind has a bite to it. It's worth it for the view, you can see all the way to the bay. I collect some small plastic pieces again but keep clear of the edge as I could be blown over and never seen again. "With Tim Finn adding "They Won't Let My Girlfriend Talk To Me" into his live set recently, we have had a lot of people asking if it is available anywhere. As most Aussie's would know, the brilliant Jimmy & The Boys recorded it in 1981. A huge hit for the band (peaking at #8 and receiving a Gold single award for sales). In 1999 Raven Records approached me with a project called "Other Enz: Split Enz & Beyond". A 41 track 2 cd of rarities around Split Enz. I really wanted to add Tim's demo of "Girlfriend" but the demo master tape had gone missing years before. I had Ignatius Jones from Jimmy & The Boys number, so I called him and he dropped in the original publishing cassette from Tim. So we rescued Tims demo version from that, which is on OTHER ENZ. The original tape still exists in our Archives. OTHER ENZ sold well, just short of gold and it did chart so copies are floating about on Ebay etc. It's a very fan friendly release , in fact it was made for fans & collectors - so worth tracking it down. For those interested - a few minutes ago we just put up an interview from Sounds - with Ignatius Jones/ Joylene Hairmouth from Jimmy & The Boys chatting with Donny Sutherland discussing "Girlfriend" & playing the "Product of your Mind" video. Those 2 are always a lot of fun , Donny such a fan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVwBTS1t324 I spend most of the day giving it a push on social media. We put this one up because we kind of loved the interview, we know the viewing numbers won't be huge but sometimes we do things for us and not necessarily views. Saying that we love it when people enjoy the clips. It's the 881st video on our YouTube page, so getting close to 900. So on that note we will leave you to enjoy the clip. Be happy- life is what you make of it. Peter xxxx |
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