Okay, this is the first day off I’ve had since we finished the tour so sorry about the tardiness of this post! We finally got paid some of the tour shows for which we were owed and we may have scored ourselves a booking agent, so I’m in a pretty good mood.

First off though, News! Hugo has announced that he and his wife Emily are moving to Trinidad in February. Hugo will be touring New Zealand with us in late January(see the tour page), but those will probably be the last shows we play with our keyboard, guitar, vocal and arranging maestro, so for all you Aussie fans and friends who didn’t make it to one of our November tour shows to see him, suck it! We had a blast hanging out together, stinking up the van and behaving badly on commercial airliners, it’s gonna be weird not having Hugo about to kick my ass about melodies, steal my food, beer and coffee and occupy the bathroom for obscene amounts of time. We’ll be continuing with the standard four piece for the time being, with a view to recruiting a keys player when the right person come along.

So we finished up the wings on fire tour a couple of weeks back, with our Melbourne launch and a couple of shows in Hobart. Friday 27^th November we played our hometown show at The Curtin Band Room in Carlton. It’s a great venue with a nice PA based around a big old Allen and Heath console and HK FOH speakers. Nice sound, cool room. We had probably the best lineup we’ve ever pulled together for a Falcon show, with Blood Ones, Oliver Mann and Single Twin opening for us! Hugo, Huw and I had dinner with a couple of friends at Sichuan House in the city, extremely tasty and hot food, probably not the best idea before a show but fuck it, sometimes you need to live a little(or a lot). We got back just in time for the start of Blood Ones set, which despite the lack of crowd was really amazing, Monica’s songs with Mel’s and Jims BV’s were positively spine tingling! Ollie was up next, still no crowd to speak of and I am starting to get worried. He sings the chorus of Diamonds and Silver down octave and my god, the control he has of his pitch, tone and volume is amazing. I know he’s a trained opera singer but jesus! Jealous! Single Twin round out the support sets and the tall and handsome Marcus Teague beguiles all present with his down-tempo lovelorn tales and beautiful melodies. We’re definitely in the mood to play now, regardless of the minimal crowd(40 payers + guests, everyone is at the Ned Collette show tonight). We play well, having a blast and enjoying the big stage and great monitoring. It’s a little sad to play our homecoming launch to so few people, but everyone is attentive and responsive and the thrill of playing together is unaffected. All feels right with the world for a brief hour.

Next morning we meet up at my place to catch a maxi-taxi to the airport and on to Hobart. It’s the beginning of schoolies, so the departure lounge is packed with inappropriately attired teenagers, making us feel like lecherous old men. The Jetstar staff member who singles us out and gets us to the front of the queue looks like some kind of Hitler Youth sex offender, the mo’ he has grown for Movember not helping his side part, lisp and Aryan über mensch bearing.

By the time we deplane in Hobart it’s pissing down and will continue to do so for the entire time we remain in this fair city. Last minute gear borrowing organised we head for lunch by the harbor, fish and chips, oysters and beer. Excellent. Next we head to the Lark to try some of their excellent house made whiskys and see a massive Great Dane with a weird pink thingy hanging off the underside of its front-quarters. Weird.

Finally we drag ourselves over to the Brisbane Hotel for our arvo slot on an all ages bill called The Hobart Medicine Show. Joe and myself have been to The Brisbane a few times with the Ramps and really love the place. Owner Gibbo and soundman Ivan are always super accommodating and great fun to hang out with and we have a great afternoon dicking around and getting way too drunk. The show goes surprisingly well and we sell a bunch of CDs, leading me to surmise that we might have provided the genesis of a country rock revolution amongst the youth of Hobart. Ha! After playing we hop-skip it over to the Alley Cat for our evening show opening for Teeth and Tongue and Ned Collette. Somehow we manage to cram on to the tiny stage and bash out a pretty decent set. Don is on fire on the drums, has been all tour really. Every time he gets the vibe that ‘anything goes’ at a particular show he really lets loose. We’ve really got to encourage him to do it all the time!

After the show we make a pilgrimage to Mykonos for pork rolls, pizza and veggie burgers. Its offensively bad food, but who’s gonna argue with Mr. Toast? Not Potential Falcon, I assure you.

First, you book some shows around the country. If you’ve done it right it will be relatively easy to get from one show to the next, without too many days of downtime(a day off = no money) and with reasonable distances to cover each day. Every time you have to stick 5 people on a plane the cost goes up, so you want to play lots of shows consecutively and drive the distances between.

For this tour we’ve got eight shows, not a lot but still more than a lot of indie bands touring in Australia. We’ve had to book a few flights; the first being from Brisbane to Melbourne and the second and third from Melbourne to Hobart and back. Otherwise we’ve been driving a hired Toyota Tarago (the touring bands’ vehicle of choice) as none of us own a vehicle that would fit the five of us and our basic gear(guitars, pedals, snare drum, cymbals).

Because of the few unavoidable flights and the fact that most of us play in other bands that also tour regularly, we have nice rugged road cases for most of our gear, with the few standard guitar hard cases slowly being phased out. Baggage handling staff and machinery are notoriously hard on musical equipment (and probably normal luggage too), so it’s a must to have solid road cases for all the fragile and expensive vintage guitars we cart about the place.

All of this, the professional looking cases, the flights and the shiny hire car add up to make it feel a bit like you’re faking it. We are a largely unknown band playing fairly unfashionable music and we regularly get less than 50 people to shows. Things are slowly building up, sure, but I regularly get a bit tweaked when someone in the check in line at the airport asks which band we are in, clearly expecting a name they’ve heard of, I mean look at all the ‘stuff,’ surely we must be important!

Anyhow, that’s been running through my mind for the past few weeks as we’ve started our little tour. Here are a few stories from the road…..

On Thursday 12^th November we picked up a brand new Tarago with less than 4000km’s on the odometer and hit the road for Canberra. Over the past couple of years I’ve had a lot of trouble with long distance driving, I struggle to last for more than a couple of hours without wanting to fall asleep. This tour I seem to have bounced back, smashing out 4 and 5 hours at a stretch. Rad. Setting the tone for the whole tour, we listen to a mixture of The Beatles, Ween, lots of soul music, The Savage Love Podcast and This American Life. We make it to Canberra in roughly 7 hours and head straight for the Asian Noodle House to grab a Laksa with Hugo, his wife Emily and my friend Nick. We haven’t had a chance to practice with Hugo so most of the conversation is taken up with discussions about new songs and bits and pieces we need to sort out in sound check…..

….Which as it turns out, we won’t be getting. We’re loaded in and ready to go with plenty of time to check, but the in-house sound guy doesn’t want to and doesn’t see the point of it. As a live sound engineer myself I can understand his feelings regarding this, but it’s always a good idea for a band to be able to get a feel for a stage prior to walking on for the main show. Instead of sound checking I change strings on the guitars and smash a pint or two of Little Creatures Bright Ale. Mmmmmm.

The show winds up going really well! We get a decent turnout, sell plenty of merch, our support acts are ace and I don’t get too drunk to play. It’s a very nice start to the tour, though we all know it may well be the highlight until we play Melbourne.

Friday afternoon Joe, Huw and I drive to Sydney. I’m going to mix Denim Owl (Aleks and Janita from The Ramps) at The Metro where they will be supporting Maximo Park. An early dinner at Spice I Am is amazing as always and the D’Owl show is really great and well received by the large audience of what seems like mostly British ex-pats.

We all crash at a hostel in Glebe, not sleeping for a few hours due to an extended round of celebrity name/food morphing. Some choice ones included; Almond Schwarzenegger, Edgar Rice Burritos, George Squashington and Bran Parsons. This game continues for the next week or so, alternately becoming tiresome and then funny again. We’re hardcore.

Saturday Morning we drag our hung-over asses to Big Brekky in Petersham for excellent coffee and a tasty feed. I have a very Larry David moment when I order Vitasoy in my latte, while everyone else orders Bon Soy. I realise soon after how much of an ass I must seem and how annoying it is for the barista to have to steam a separate jug of milk just for me. I head inside the café to try and explain myself and change my order but the staff won’t have it. I am only mildly less embarrassed.

We later head to Newcastle to play at The Lass O’Gowrie. Dinner at some café in Cooks Hill is as Huw described ‘either cooked with a total lack of joy, a total lack of skill or some mixture of both.’

The show is weird. We are playing sandwiched between two very hippie-ish acts and while there is a decent crowd they mostly head out to the beer garden while we play. Those left in attendance barely clap after songs, so with a too-hot stage and many awkward silences between songs we cut the set a bit short in an effort to escape.

We do manage to get paid the princely sum of $108, which is $108 more than The Ramps got at the same venue back in July, so it’s not all bad news.

After playing we get really drunk, eat McDonalds on the way back to the hostel and regret it in the morning.

Sunday we have a fairly slow start ahead of our drive to Brisbane. Google Maps has it at a 10hour and 40 minute drive, so we’re up at 730am. Huw and I realised before bed that we’d have an extra hour up our sleeve due to Queensland’s lack of daylight savings, but elect not to tell the rest of the band so they’ll get up at a reasonable time.

We get Breakfast Burrito’s and decent coffee and finally hit the road at about 9am. The drive is really rather nice, and we make it in 9 hours, arriving with plenty of time to load in, pick up an amp from good mates Halfway, eat dinner and sound check.

The show is quite fun, The Troubadour being on of the best venues in the country IMHO. The crowd however is scarce, which is a shame as Eulogies are bloody excellent and Seabellies play a really great set. We strike up an immediate friendship with the guys from Eulogies, I think we recognised a certain earnestness in each others music. They are super nice guys and we really look forward to seeing them play again in Cronulla.

Monday morning we head for the airport, where we’ll dump the hire car and head home. Hugo is on the first flight and due to heavy traffic, amp returnage and extensive road works we only get him there 20 minutes before his flight. He is unable to check in any baggage, leaving the rest of us 23kg over limit. Stung, is what we get. $230 excess baggage, up until which was destined for Huws’ credit card to help pay for the hire car. Balls. Hopefully things will pick up next week.

Well, wings on fire is out! Has been for a week now. You can get it from any decent record store and also online from itunes.

We’ve also announced our national tour in November to support it, here are the dates:

Wings on Fire - 2009

Thursday 12th Nov: CANBERRA, Transit Bar
w/ Voss and Hoodlum Shouts

Saturday 14th Nov: Newcastle, The Lass O’Gowrie
w/ Great Toad and the Chameleon Circus

Sunday 15th Nov: BRISBANE, The Troubadour
w/ Eulogies(US) and The Seabellies

Thursday 19th Nov: Cronulla, The Brass Monkey
w/ Eulogies(US) and The Seabellies

Friday 20th Nov: SYDNEY, The Bald Faced Stag
w/ El Mopa, Yae! Tiger and Mr Rascal(bris)

Friday 27th Nov: MELBOURNE, The Curtin Band Room
w/ Oliver Mann, Blood Ones and Single Twin

Sat 28th Nov: HOBART, The Brisbane Hotel, Arvo show.
w/ guests

Sat 28th Nov: Hobart, The Alley Cat, evening show
w/ Teeth and Tongue and Ned Collette

There’s also a few reviews up on the media/press page, check ‘em out!

Hmmm, what else is news?! We will more than likely tour New Zealand in late Jan/early Feb next year! Stay tuned for further announcments about that.

We’ve also been setting up a studio space in Fairfield, for both Aleks and the Ramps and Potential Falcon. Al and I got really itchy the other day installing sound insulation bats in the walls. I can tick that job off my list, been there, done that, never want to do it again. As Aleks said, “If someone invites me to an insulation installing party i’m gonna say i have to wash my hair…”

Here is a very boring pic of the space:

we have plenty more carpet to steal, and couches, PA system etc to move in and make it more homely. It’s really great to have a place for ourselves though, no more putting up with metal bands jamming in the adjacent room!

Here’s some stuff that’s happened in Falcon land recently:

- We dropped the album artwork off to the printers to be turned into cd’s. Release date is Friday October 2^nd, yeah!?

- We had a song(Honey (pt 2) on some TV show called Rescue, Special Ops. Neatly paying for the above cd pressing.

- Three neat shows were played, at The Retreat, The Edinburgh Castle and The Evelyn. We were planning to debut a new song but didn’t quite practice it enough.

- The tour booking has been continuing, slowly and painfully. We’ll be on the road in November, with shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Hobart and Newcastle. Hopefully we can get some more happening and we’ll be announcing the tour for realz in a couple of weeks.

- We’ve found a warehouse to build a studio space in, so Aleks(of the Ramps) and I have been stealing carpet out of dumpsters for a few weeks, getting ready to outfit it. This is really exciting for us, rehearsing whenever we want, storage, recording. Every time we see footage of Wilco in their loft we get jealous, but now we’ll have our own!

- We’re on some kind of featured artist list on Sydney community station 2ser this week.

So, while you wait to hear about our tour plans, head to the Myspace page to hear a new track from ‘Wings on fire’ entitled For Melinda, and check out the front cover of the cd right here!

Upon arriving at Brisbane airport and collecting the gear from the turnstiles Huw asks, “Has anyone seen the keyboard?” No one has. We will find out a few days later that we left it in the hire car in Sydney. Between this and the laptop dying, it’s beginning to look as if something doesn’t want Hugo to play on this tour. But I think it’d be wise to pin it on simple ineptitude. Grabbing the hire car(HERTZ, cause they have a $30 per day no excess insurance policy!) we head for the Halfway rehearsal space to borrow some guitar amps and a Nord Electro. The Halfway boys really are a generous lot and we’ll see John, Sean and Ben later on at Rics.

We take advantage of the free food offered to us at Fat Boys next to rics and wait, wait and wait for our turn to take the stage. We played bloody well tonight! But being Rics, it was a little hard to tell. Thank you so much to Renae for her valiant efforts with that pig of a PA system. Upon finishing our set we have to pack up straight away, no time to pause. The stage must be packed against the wall to make way for a dance floor and we have to get the car out of the parking garage a block away. This is really making it hard to chill out and I’m still covered in sweat. Oh! For decent size stages and green rooms…….

For those keeping score, tonight’s rider consisted of 2 local beers or basic spirits each. I seem to remember last time we played Rics it was any beer we wanted, tough economic times? The bar was packed all night as usual…
The Valley is just as insane as ever, tonight the venue manager Raychel had to push me out of the way of a drunk dude with a crew-cut and white wife beater who was being tackled to the ground by 3 security guards. I really can’t think of another place like it in Australia. Someone hanging with us said it was just like Phuket. Those poor Thai. For anyone who’s never been to Fortitude Valley on a weekend night, it’s a square block of ‘entertainment precinct’ filled to the brim with overdressed and drunk Brisbane suburbanites out on the town. There was vomit on the sidewalk at 730pm. I kinda like it. It’s how every conservative politician views the future of Australian youth culture, and they are probably not far off.

Tonight is the first show of the tour and Sydney is experiencing torrential downpours.

Hugo and Simon have had a single run through of the set, the five of us not having played together since December ’08. Spirits are high however, Hugo, his wife Emily, Simon and some of Simon’s family went to see Gary Louris and Mark Olson the preceding night and catch a conversation between Stephen Cummings and Don Walker at the Sydney Writers Festival, both of which are ace!

Upon arrival the bar staff direct us to the rear door to load in, as we begin to do so however we are yelled at by the in-house sound guy for doing so. He informs us that we can no longer load in or out from the rear doors. His general mood and attitude towards us is not a good sign. What is it with in house engineers? I have met a large number of them, and can only think of two(Harry at the NSC and Renae at Rics) who are nice, decent, competent people. Hey venues/in house dudes, you are not doing us some massive favor by letting us play at your venue! You run a live music venue yes?! Then we are an important part of your income stream, treat us as such! (We are very easy going and professional people.)

Okay, so when all the borrowed gear arrives, we begin sound check. The laptop running Hugo’s keyboard sounds refuses to boot, so he will have to fudge his parts on guitar. Ugh. Fortunately he is a musical genius and we have now worries regarding his ability to do so. The rest of sound check is uneventful, aside from a side-fill packing it in and a bit more cursing from sound man.

Dinner is a mad run in the rain with no umbrellas to The Annandale Hotel. Home of Rider(the rider being a list of a bands requirements at a show, or just the free beer a venue gives you), the top notch Mexican place run my Matt Blackman from Charge Group/Palace of Fire/Tucker B’s, surely the busiest man in Aussie showbiz. Matt lets us taste his homemade hot-sauce and we are much pleased. We have another crack at Dave’s Ultimate Insanity Hott Sauce; Joe sweats a lot and has to remove many layers of clothing to cool down. I had a Burrito with Chorizo and Capsicum, it was AWESOME.

Showtime, No Art have brought the crowd (46 payers) and are awesome! Please come to Melbourne! The door charge has been changed from the agreed $10 to $8 with no explanation(WTF!?), we are given a single(1) drink each, local beers or basic spirits only.

Golden Mean fuzz it up, Line Drawings remind us why we love the ‘90’s so much(dual guitar interplay is the answer). We pile out of the venue having made a last minute attempt to get the bar girls to come party with us and head to the hostel round the corner.

We ditch the gear in the room and proceed across the road to the Cleveland and drink way too much until too late at night.

Awake to find there is no air left in the rooms, eat Spice I Am for lunch half an hour after breakfast and make a dash for the airport. On to Brisbane!

Here it is;

Right clicky to download: On the road (pt1)

and the b-side: Be my Dorothy

Both are 320kbps MP3’s, if thats not good enough for ya, come to a show and buy the super limited edition cd version, or if you want a .flac, let us know in the comments. Fuck it, no-one is metering our bandwidth.

Both songs were recorded by Simon. Produced by the band and mixed by Wayne Connolly. ‘On the road’ was mastered at Crystal Mastering in Melbourne. ‘Be my Dorothy’ was hastily run through Vintage Warmer™ at the last moment by Simon.  The cover was designed by Louise Connolly(we like to keep it in the family).

Hope you like ‘em, and don’t forget the TOUR!

We got some ridiculous custom chocolates made.  See below:

I guess we’ll sell them at shows. They taste pretty good.

We’ve added a pic of the tour poster to the Tour page, and sharp eyes will note that for our Sydney show at the Excelsior, No Art have replaced Shakin’ Howls due to an outbreak of acute bass player shortage, or swine flu. You just can’t be too sure these days.