Patrick Evans

Stevie Connor, the presenter of Wee Dan's Hoose on Blues & Roots Radio (you should catch it, it's a great show) told me that my song "This Old Guitar" had been played on Isles FM The Hebrides of Scotland or as he called it back home "the edge of the world". So my wee song has gone from downunder to the edge of the world!
This brings back memories of all the Patrick O'Brian novels I read and the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and his side kick Doctor Stephen Maturin as they sailed the seven seas in the wild days of battle and discovery. They went to the far side of the world (which must be somewhere near the edge) a lot. Somehow they always managed to return after a series of thrilling adventures. The thing I so enjoyed about these books is you could jump in and out of them anywhere, skip from book to book and somehow the story seemed to flow, seemed to hang together. It was like one enjoyable story you could dip in and out of at any time and, like a recurring dream, once in, it seemed like you had never left. I think I'll go and dip into a Patrick O'Brian book when I've finished this.
"So what' all this got to do with the price of fish?" I hear you ask...
Well, the song "the Voyage" off the Wrenboys album was written after a particularly heavy few months of Patrick O'Brian novels combined with the fallout of relationships ending and beginning. The nautical theme is obvious and if I remember rightly I might have borrowed a guitar groove from Christopher Cross's song about sailing during the initial writing process. It's buried in the mix if it's still there at all so I don't think I need worry about any "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" scenarios with this one. What is less obvious is the narcissism behind the lyrics. There are times, and I think it's a part of human nature, when we think the whole world revolves around us and our situation.  Being in love is one of these, war is another ("don't they know there's a war on..."), losing a close friend or relative is another, being diagnosed with a serious illness and so on. The narrator in "The Voyage" is in love, bound on a reckless voyage, determined to end in death or glory or both. And of course, he's dragging his new partner with him "look at us everybody..." Frankly, everybody would rather they just get a room, get it out of their systems and get back to being the normal, fun people they used to be.
Still, I listen to this a fair bit even now. Musically I'm very proud of this song and there are some neat devices at play. A strong pre-chorus and a big pub rock main chorus. The guitar of Brock O'Connor is outstanding as is the "don't argue" drumming of Fred Abery. This is probably the rockiest track I've ever done so you might want to finish your porridge and orange juice and take the dog for a walk before hitting the play button.
Lastly, tune into Blues & Roots Radio 11am this Sunday morning (Melbourne time) to hear me on the Scaussie Music Show with Neil Mitchell. Hopefully I'll have digested my porridge and orange juice and won't burp through the lyrics....
Cheers
Parick

I guess I was pretty lucky as a boy. At the age of nine my family relocated from inner city North Carlton to Torquay (on Victoria's surf coast) for one year and then to Clifton Springs on the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria. Our house was built on a block that ran right down to the water's edge; the water was Port Phillip Bay. We had the biggest, wettest back yard in the world! As kids we mucked around in boats, fished, swam, snorkeled and generally had the time of our lives, and if we got bored with the bay Ocean Grove with its surf beach and Barwon Heads with its river outlet was only a twenty minute drive away. 
When I grew up I moved into Geelong (still close to the sea) and concentrated on music and instrument building so the sea became less a part of my everyday life but I still hankered for the lap of the waves on the sand and the sound of seagulls circling overhead. 
After the demise of Fiddlestix (1989) I played in a bush dance band for a while (Diamentina Dance Band) and then formed a band called Lucky Suns with my old mate Dominic McAlinden, Peter Maskell and Grant Smith. We were later joined by keyboard wiz Danny Kriven and played around the Geelong area for about two years. We made two recordings, one self titled EP (cassette only) and an album (cassette only as well) called "Ten Songs". There are some strong songs on these recordings and even if the sound quality is a bit ordinary the energy and sheer amount of work we put in shines through. We are going to try and resurrect the "Ten Songs" album with a bit of studio fairy dust but the self titled EP still sounds pretty good. So, to tie all this together, I have uploaded my song "Down To The Sea" from the Lucky Suns self titled EP. This is the story of a middle aged bloke (sadly now true so it was a bit of a prophecy) yearning for the seaside days of his youth. The "fish and chips for lunch" in the chorus refers to the legendary fish and chips you can still buy in the main street of Queenscliff. The beginning is a bit "arty" as I took my German Shepard "Woodie" down to the beach at my Mum's place with a hand held cassette recorder and grabbed various sound bites to set the "sonic landscape" (I was doing Performing Arts at Deakin Uni at the time). Dominic calls out to the kids to "get in the car". This is due to the fact he was the only parent in the band at that time and we thought he could summon up the appropriate parental authority...  I still play this one quite often and it usually raises a chuckle in the audience. Enjoy.....

I wrote this song in 1998 and recorded it with The Wrenboys in early 1999. I don't remember that much about writing it except that it was mainly about an imaginary meeting with an ex-girlfriend (such meetings in real life are rarely that great) and a bit of homespun philosophy about moving on, hence "it don't pay to rake the coals of yesterday". The songwriter in me often lives in an imaginary world where he is a sort of preacher for the people, sending out truths and wisdom from an imaginary pulpit, spreading enlightenment with a well turned phrase or a clever internal rhyme. He's an annoying git to be honest, no wonder I banished him for a good ten years, sent to the songwriter salt mines for a decade of cultural "readjustment". These days (I hope) he's learnt his lesson and resists his "preaching" inclinations in favour of a more storytelling approach or a simpler, straight from the heart style. If not he may need to be sent back to the salt mines....
Anyway, recording the Wrenboys self titled album was great fun and I learnt a lot under the watchful eye of Ross Ryan who engineered and produced the album. This song features the wonderful fiddle playing of Ewen Baker, the rock solid bass and drums of Will Oldmeadow and Fred Abery and a bit of me on vocals and guitars. We did this one a lot live and it was a bit of a favourite at the time. I still trot it out on occasion as I'm quite fond of it. I hope you enjoy it and I'll upload other songs from the album from time to time.

When I was growing up I heard stories of my mother’s uncle, Reg Ellis, who had been killed on the Somme during the First World War. As I recall it was the younger generation that spoke of him. My grandmother never mentioned him and my grandfather was a silver haired man with a bristling moustache with little time for little kids. He died when I was six or seven and I only have fleeting memories of him. Reg was my grandfather’s older brother.A few years ago I found myself with a day off in London and decided to visit the Imperial War Museum (an amazing experience in itself) and while poking around the exhibits and gazing in wonder at the canvas and wire contraptions that people used to fly around in and shoot at each other I suddenly remembered the stories of Reg. I decided to look him up.
I casually wondered up to the computer screen, typed in his name and there he was, “Private Reginald Ellis, 27^th Infantry Battalion AIF, killed in action, Flers, France, November 1916, no known grave”. I felt a huge surge of emotion rush through me and tears started running down my face. There was this boy, just turned 18, lost somewhere in the mud on the Somme and so far from home he may as well have been on the moon.
I started researching Reg when I got home and progressively learnt more about Reg’s story. A story repeated may thousands of times during that horrific war.
I have a friend who once told me he became so obsessed with researching dead relatives that his wife accused him of paying more attention to his dead relatives than those that lived with him. I know what he means. I would hurry home from work, jump on line eager to uncover the next mystery lurking in the archives of the Australian War Memorial Records.
I learnt of another uncle, never mentioned, who had fought at Gallipoli, been wounded, repatriated in England, married an English nurse and returned to Australia to settle in Belmont, Geelong, the same town I grew up in, and I’d never heard of him. What was the story there?
In amongst all this sleuth work I discovered that Reg had joined up underage and had changed his name and lied about his age. His mother appears to have played a part in the deception. He started his service in the Bicycle Corp in Egypt, was transferred to France and joined the 27^th Battalion as a soldier mid 1916.
He was killed in the ill fated attack on German lines near the town of Flers on November 5^th, 1916. There were two attacks that day, Reg’s battalion was in the first wave. They managed to capture German front line trenches but the conditions were so bad their rifles were clogged with mud  and they were easy targets for German snipers. In the first attack that day there were 208 Australian casualties, 819 in the second. There was another attack the next day and Reg’s body was identified by a soldier from the 26^th Battalion, George Osbourne during that offensive. He retrieved Reg’s pay book and a few personal effects but had to leave the body as they were forced to retreat. George reported the finding in the following extract from the Australian War Memorial records.
“I found his pay book (produced) on the 6^th Nov. 1916 on his body. He had been killed by a sniper in the trenches we captured opposite Flers. His body was left there as we had to evacuate the trench the same day. I only identified the body from the paybook and some letters. Ellis’s mother address is :- Mrs Rachael Ellis, Horsham, Victoria”
George’s unit was from Bundaberg and he was about 26 when he found Reg’s body. I imagine a tough warrior, hardened by years working in the sugarcane fields. I feel a sense of gratitude towards him for taking the time to look after poor young Reg and to see news got to his family. George survived the war and the last entry in his file is a letter politely requesting the medals he feels entitled to for his war service. The letter was dated 1967.
Perhaps the most moving document I found  was the enlistment papers for my grandfather, Harold Ellis, who joined up in 1918. We had understood that he had been too young to join up or that he’d had a bad heart or something but he did join up. His enlistment papers include signed permission from his father who noted that he had two sons already in the services, one killed in action and the other wounded and recuperating in England. My father told me that, as a result of so many families losing sons, legislation had been introduced requiring parental permission for a third son to enlist. And my great grandfather gave the nod!
As things turned out Harold had just completed his training when the war ended. Things may have been so different had he gone to the Western Front…..

This song is my attempt at telling the story of Reg and George. I hope it does justice to both of them and I hope you like it.

I wrote this song recently as an ode to my old 1985 Maton CW80.
It's an attempt to explore the relationship we have as musicians with our instruments. I think we all have a favourite instrument and it's not always the newest, shiniest or most valuable in our collection. My old "ceedub" has been with me through the best and worst of times. It's always been there to work something out on, to doodle on watching the footy, to lug around to all sorts of gigs or just to lean over and listen to the songs that emerge.
It was with me on Black Saturday as I sat in front of the radio, curtains drawn, aircon blasting, as I listened to the events of the day unfold. We were waiting for Ray & Jill (my father and stepmother) to join us for dinner. They had a place at Marysville which they left mid morning to do a few things before joining us later in the afternoon.
The day was too hot (46 - 47 degrees celsius) to do much so I decided to have a go at arranging O'Carolan's "Shi Beag Si Mor" on DADGAD guitar. The result is actually the track that pops up when you open this site. My memory of that dreadful day will always include sitting for hours with my old "ceedub" listening to one disaster after another being announced on ABC radio. Fortunately my parents came down the mountain well before the fire storm started and were sitting with us as Marysville was destroyed. 
A year later my brother Richard and I wrote a couple of songs, "Shed Of Evans" and "Black Saturday" to perform at a gathering at my father's shed in Marysville. The shed had survived the firestorm and Dad was so impressed with this he felt a gathering was in order to commemorate both the losses of that terrible day as well as the amazing survival of the shed. The music for "Black Saturday" was  composed on, you guessed it, my trusty old CW80. I have other guitars (all Maton of course) and they're wonderful too but there's something extra special about this old guitar. 
So, I have added two songs to my album "Acoustic Sessions", "This Old Guitar" and "Black Saturday". I hope you enjoy them.
As a footnote, my other brother Tom recorded Richard and myself doing a version of "Shed Of Evans" at the new house in Marysville early this week. I haven't checked it out yet but if it's any good I'll upload it.