The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: **
I like sitting under trees, even Nick Seymour painted trees! (Kalorama May 2021)
May 17thA little life changing moment today. Well for awhile, maybe? I'm being cryptic which is kind of good as it's a deep soul moment. Where one puts in the time for other humans. Excited, and even a bit nervous.May 18thLovely 4 new songs in my IN box- 'The Sea Holds The Memory', 'My Regeneration', 'Three Sheep Grazing' , 'Bundle Of Their Dreams'. Loving these four. But who are they from? All will be revealed down the track I guess. Music is in safe hands!A long day. I manage to run into the Montrose Pizza shop and they had 12 minutes to create the two Pizza's that i wanted. They succeeded.! I mail off a pile of birthday cards for May. Fourteen May birthdays in a row...a few days of none and then 6 more! Crazy. Today was a good day. I'm feeling all warm inside. May 19thI remember to call my sisters husband and wish him a Happy Birthday. I should have a little recorded message of yours truly singing Happy Birthday to the May people. It would be easier.Lunch at Montage with Marky. Rather delicious. The lunch, and Marky too of course. My sister spoils us with two tickets to see Steve Kilbey at the Thornbury Theatre - a joy to see him perform all those Church singles. I can't wait. Proud to say that i bought the very first Church single on it's week of release. It was a flop, the mighty "Unguarded Moment" was the first single to chart here in Oz. It peaked at #22. I remember being at Countdown when they performed it, what a band! Strangely enough "Under the Milky Way" went to #22 in Australia as well. #24 in the USA. May 20thI love my new shoes. Jeff Banks- square toed winklepickers I guess is the best description. Fairly comfortable too.A girl on twitter told me she played the new Crowded House single on her ABC radio show. Gawd she must be the only one, insane that this 3rd single has failed to chart (well so far) so that makes 3/3 that have not showed up in the Australian charts. The good old days of radio getting behind a new Crowded House song seems to of evaporated. Why are the record company not releasing these on vinyl? Give the collector fans something - no wonder they are not getting support. The album will at least chart, the presales for the LP have been available for 4 months. So surely those advance sales add up on release week! I should shut up as I am not part of that anymore. I expect Australia will be flooded with Interviews so that should change the fortune of the album. The bands chart history here is rather sensational. Debut album-#1, Temple-#1, Woodface-#2, Together Alone-#2, Time on Earth-#1, Intriguer-#1. So it will be fascinating to see how "Dreamers" does. May 21stHappy Birthday Sharon Finn! Our mate Chez did some cool hand painted cards so I mailed Dawny one of those. It was a sweet card.Our friend Trudi arrives with a birthday gift and the offer of lunch. I get to wear my new shoes in public and some positive comments. Lunch is magnificent and it's always good to catch up with our best mate. I sneak off and buy some giant potatoes from Pellegrino' s as I only have medium size in my garden, too small to use as Baked filled spuds! As Winter approaches the vegetable patch is a bit barren. Wonderful to see so many Aussie students protesting the Federal Governments inaction on climate change. Out into the streets they go, passionate and LOUD! May 22ndExciting morning of clothes washing happening here at Ailsa Craig. How thrilling is that! To bring up the excitement level I clean Banshee's litter tray. Woo-Woo!I head to the office and surprisingly have a lot of Emails today. All of them good, a few still asking band related questions, which is ok. I still happily answer most. May 23rdTwo new species of the fontainea and pittosporum genera have been found on this tiny but of land near the new Coffs Harbour bypass /highway. The remnants of an ancient rainforest from Gondwana super continent. Thought to be extinct, so incredible that they still exist.One of those shitty afternoons around technology. Marks Apple computer in the office has bitten the dust. The usual problem with this model, the video card. We've been fortunate as Apple replaced it three times- insane that the model had a fault in the first place. In 2021 they are now out of the video cards so basically the computer is dead. Sucks as it was the main computer in the office and lost count of the massive volume of stuff done on it for the fans of so many of our bands. Endless video footage converted and obscure tracks found mostly by Mark. One fine example is the acoustic version of " Private Universe" that mark sent to Neil all those years back. Neil loving it so much it went on the Crowded House Afterglow album. Fans certainly have done well from that computer and Marks tireless efforts. May 24thBob Dylan turns 80 today. Those iconic musicians are all getting older, Jagger in his late seventies in a few weeks. At least they are still here and every so often churn out a good song. Tim Finn 70 in 2 years.I was thinking of our mate Fen, and ten seconds later the phone rings and it was her. ESP on hypermode today! We are burning some blackberries etc outside and I add some potatoes into the coals. Nice to have a fire as the weather is turning , Winter is on the way. May 25thI'm out working on a project today -basically 9-5. It's so nice to come home and Marky has lasagne baking away in the oven. I can have a shower and chill. This time of year darkness descends quickly and some of the street lights were out at Kalorama. I managed to make it home before the velvet cloak of the night wrapped itself around our little community.We spend the night watching the last few episodes of The Expanse and Aussie Crime Investigation shows on cable. Horrified at times how brutal some can be to other humans. May 26thOur buddy Robin Macdonald would of turned 61 years young today. What an amazing woman, big hearted and we miss her like crazy. She loved music SO much. In many ways it was her life-we do get that.I mail off MIMs Winter Fairy book and some other little presents for my Wollongong family. So it should arrive just in time for Winter. I also pop a birthday gift and card in the mail for our buddy Fen. I'm annoyed as Miss K calls and I miss the call. She is such good value, so wanted to chat to her. By the time I spot the message it's some insane time in America so didn't want to wake her. Victoria has 6 new Covid cases, you just know another mini Lockdown is on the horizon. Whatever keeps us safe. May 27thHappy Birthday Neil Finn. 63 and about to have a new album out with Crowded House. We wish them well. Now go blow out all those candles and good luck with "Dreamers".We get the details around midday that a week Lockdown will happen from midnight tonight. Apparently the SA Government gave the all clear for someone in Quarantine and they headed across the border to Victoria and kick started some Covid infections. Lucky us. Enchiladas for dinner -so nice on a cold night. May 28thThe many May birthdays continue-Happy Birthday Andy White!My friend Chris calls and we chat about Marks computer. This year it's a BIG birthday for Marky. A major number. Chris has this cool suggestion that all of our mates just put in a few dollars towards anew computer. It's not a bad idea, I'm having a think about the best way to do this. Some friends have been trying to figure out what to get Mark - he can be hard to buy for, so a tiny donation towards a new computer would be an awesome present. It would blow his mind. If it happens I have a big bundle of video tapes from many tours of stuffed I've filmed so it would mean at long last that would get to go up on you tube. With no computer Marks not reading my diary so I can throw all of this stuff out there and he won't know. It could be a great surprise for this very special birthday-thanks Chris. Chat to Trudi, Laura and Caz-and everyone decided 100 people at a mere $20 would do it! So that is the goal! [editor's note: email Peter (petergr@netspace.net.au) for details on how to donate] May 29thWe are playing The Smiths first Best Of..in the lounge room, I'm trying to make Banshee dance with me, whilst singing "If you have 5 seconds to spare I'll tell you the story of my life...". That line always feels very F/16 diaryish!I'm enjoying baked potatoes , a few times a week i create them. Mark hates baked potato so these are just for me. The novelty will wear off and I won't eat them for another 6 months. Playing in the office today- Triple J's Super Request-Dogs Breakfast cd. Scissor Sisters "Tits on the radio", Marilyn Manson "Beautiful people" , Primus with Wynona's "Big Brown Beaver" to name a few. May 30thLast Friday the chip on my debit card died at the Olinda bakery while buying 2 pies. I'm a regular so the girls just put it on the slate. Little to my knowledge the lady behind me paid for them when I left. Its the kindness of strangers during Covid that makes Australia amazing!May 31stClint Eastwood 91 years old. Imagine being 91. He seems rather healthy for someone in their nineties.I hear from Nick Seymour wanting some help with some historical information, of course I say "Yes", I'll probably always say Yes to when I get such calls. I refer to my old Tour diaries and wow, all the information right there on the page. The Crowded House FOREST backdrop is finally up. Work on it for 3 hours. I wait till dusk and bombard it with strobes and the smoke machine to photograph it. This one is in excellent condition but bloody heavy! June 1stWinter has arrived and our yard is covered in ice, we both avoid the East Lawn and head down the west side walk to the office. Even the Sulphur crested Cockatoo's look cold! Banshee has taken to climbing into my bed and sleeping under the covers.So I set up an account for Markys computer donations. Within 5 mins our buddy Laura donated which was fantastic. Since then we've had about 30 donations- and a few of our musicians from various bands! . I'm Blown away. I guess people appreciate all that Mark has done. Plus we all know of he gets a new computer there are so many gigs and on tour stuff that we filmed , that he will be working on for YouTube for the fans. Anyway email me (petergr@netspace.net.au) for details on how to donate. You might well get a little special present as well! We love our friends and Frenz - thanks again for the support with this one. All the best Peter |