BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats

Subject: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:43 AM

In chats with THE FAIR ONE, I am reminded that Aussie days celebrations are going on. Let me be the first to offer my greetings to this wonderful contingent of Mudcatters. So to alison, Helen, Alan of Australia, Callie, Bob Bolton, Lena, Stewie, Ted from Australia, John in Brisbane, Bugsy, and Gaz................ohmigod.........I am having a fifty year old style brain fart.........I am missing someone......and I can't for the life of me think of his name.......he is one of our best.........sheeeeeeiiiiittttt!!!!!!!!!!

It will come to me and then I will post again.....but in the meantime I just want you all to know that I hold you in VERY, VERY high regard. This place would not be near the community it is without you. There is simply no community of 'Catters anywhere that are more giving and nicer folks. My life has been enriched in the meeting of you all. So on your national day, I would like to salute you and celebrate the country that has spawned you.

Slainte,

Big Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:16 AM

G'day,

Mick, thanks old mate (that title makes you an honorary Aussie).

The day is a couple of hours old now & I should be in bed resting up for the big day - 2 gigs & many other activities. In fact it's the start of a very busy long weekend.

Hope the weather's a bit cooler, we've had a week of 40+ degrees (celsius). That's 104 on the old scale.

This year it's a big one as this is the centenary year of Federation. 1901 was the year the Australian nation came into being. Before that the states were separate colonies.

Time for some sleep...................

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 12:49 PM

Happy Aussie Day Commonwealth Mates... Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Helen
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:09 PM

Thanks, mates.

We're going to a traditional Aussie barbecue for lunch - steaks on the barbie, beer in the esky, and lots of good friends.

It's stinking hot here too - 100 miles north of Alan of Oz. I'm sick of this humid heat, with no cool southerly breezes and no rain. We get weather like this often in this part of the east coast but rarely for such a long uninterrupted stretch of time. It has even been 40 degrees in cold rainy Melbourne, way down south.

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" When it snows on Christmas Day in Tasmania and they get heatwaves in Melbourne it must mean the end of the world is nigh. (BWG*)

Helen * = big wicked grin

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Bugsy
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:56 PM

Thanks mate.

I'm going to spend the day sitting by my esky and sinking coldies, as every True Blue Aussie Bastard should.

(only joking)

CHeers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Callie
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:22 PM

Thanks Mick. Just finished gigging for the day and it must be 40 degrees!

I'd like to get to the Survival Concert (an annual event celebrating Indigenous Australians) which is a short drive away, but I'm feeling lazy and I can see the sea from my window, sparkling and blue! Might have to make an effort and get down to the water!

cheers cobbers

Callie

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: duart
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:27 PM

This is from an old Scot who's just recovered from a great Burns' night (lashings of Lagavulin,Laphroig and Talisker washed down with a few wee McEwan's; great songs and poems of Rabbie's here at the Burns Club in Canberra in 39 degrees Celsius (about 102 Farenheit). Now as a naturalised Australian of 10 years standing, I'm sitting here at a hot computer at 1.30 pm. swigging down a very cold Aussie beer (Hahn Premium ) and looking forward to a late afternoon "barbie" (b-b-q) and listening to some Bush ballads and Aussie folk music. So to all the other Ozcats(great nickname!) happy Australia Day and to other lovers of all kinds of music on this site happy whatever Day is your special day in your part of the world.Cheers from Jock McLean (duart).

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:31 PM

Hey! Hope you all had a good day despite the heat. I was going to post the words to Henry Lawson's poem, The Men Who Made Australia, but could not find it anywhere on the web, lots of lists of his prolific output. I have it on a tape of Peter Duggan's who sings it. I'll see about transcribing it sometime. In the meantime, here is some intersting information on Henry Lawson and the history of Austrlia around that time:please click here.

Mick, maybe one of the others you were trying to think of was who I got that tape from: [e-mail], that's the sign in name he uses here at the 'Cat.

Happy Day to you all!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:53 PM

G'day all and happy Aussie Day,

Kat:

Here are the words;

The Men Who Made Australia Henry Lawson

There'll be royal times in Sydney for the Cuff and Collar Push,
There'll be lots of dreary drivel and clap-trap
From the men who own Australia, but who never knew the Bush,
And who could not point their runs out on the map.
Oh, the daily Press will grovel as it never did before,'
There'll be many flags of welcome in the air,
And the Civil Service poet, he shall write odes by the score
But the men who made the land will not be there.

You shall meet the awful Lady of the latest Birthday Knight,
And to represent Australia here today,
You shall hear the empty mouthing of the champion blatherskite,
But the men who made Australia - where are they?
Call across the blazing sand wastes of the Never-Never Land!
There are some who will not answer -yet awhile,
Some whose bones rot in the mulga or lie bleaching on the sand,
Died of thirst to win the land another mile.

Call across the scrubby ridges where they clear the barren soil,
And the gaunt Bushwomen share the work of men -
Toil and loneliness forever - hardship, loneliness and toil -
Where the brave drought-ruined farmer starts again!
There are carriages in waiting for the swells from over-sea,
There are banquets in the latest London style,
While the men who made Australia live on damper, junk and tea
But the quiet voices whisper, "Wait a while."

For the sons of all Australia, they were born to conquer fate
And, where charity and friendship are sincere,
Where a sinner is a brother and a stranger is a mate,
There the future of a nation's written clear.

I am just working on dance music arrangements to be played on the march tomorrow for Sydney's Chinatown celebrations of Chinese New Year (The Australian Heritage Dancers are in the parade - including my co-editor on Mulga Wire, Colin Fong).

I just realised that the tune I know to this is virtually the same as Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane (known here as several songs, including a shearing song Another Fall of Rain or Waiting for the Rain - the lament of a bunch of worn out shearers, hoping for rain to bring a break in activity so their sore wrists and back can recuperate.

I published the song arrangement in 1987 in Mulga Wire, to use where appropriate in the Bicentennial guff ... then I republished it late last year, to prepare for all the Governmental guff at the entenary of Federation!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 11:01 PM

G'day again,

I should have said that this was not the full Henry Lawson text, which is about twice as long. They had more time and patience in those days (Henry actually wrote this for the Centenary celebrations, 1 January, 1901).

The version I have supplied is an edit done by John Meredith and other members of the 1952-'57 Bushwhackers Band, the archtypal "bush Band") for a small songbook Songs from Lawson, issued by the Bush Music Club in 1955. I reckon it works quite well (and is probably the one that Peter Duggan sings).

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 11:10 PM

Hey, thanks, Bob! For lyrics and the information. any chance you will get any audio files or video of the doings you and Colin will be in that you could send to Max for the radio show?

Have fun!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 03:12 AM

G'day Kat,

You will note that I have posted the full affair for this poem / song to a new LYR ADD: thread These words, the tune as a MIDItext, some notes and the full length original poem (just on 3 times as long as the song!).

As regards the Chinese New Year parade, it will probably only get coverage on SBS (Special Broadcasting Service), which has a muli-ethnic focus missing on all other channels. I will hope someone videotapes the news, just in case.

The only other coverage likely will be in one or other of the Chinese language newspapers ... Sydney has been getting pretty blasé about parades and celebrations lately ... and it looks as if the Chinese New Year parade got quietly shifted back to the day AFTER Australia Day so as not to take the shine off the big one!

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 08:43 AM

MURRAY.................THAT'S IT...........GEEZ, .............I love aging, but this memory thing is going to have to be worked on........I was sitting here saying to meself "Come on Mick, you know, he is one of the most knowledgeable and helpful Mudcatters....................

Thanks, Kat.

Murray, I hope you will forgive me, because you are really one of the very best. Been here a long time, and no one I know has been more giving in terms of their knowledge. I hope that your Aussie Days are great.

Any of you women want to swap a couple of hot flashes for some memory loss????

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: alison
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 08:49 AM

thanks Mick and everyone else......

it was a stinker of a day here... blisteringly hot here.... and 2 gigs in that heat.........arrrggghhhhh....

imagine playing a 45 minute set in a sauna and you're almost there.........

lost gallons of sweat, and discovered it's not nice to play when sunscreen runs into your eyes...... and one of our gigs we discovered when we got onstage was being sponsered by the local undertakers......... nearly had 4 more corpses by the end of it *grin*....

finished the day with a family picnic and great fireworks.... and thanksfully the temperature has dropped a little......

all together now..... "once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong....."

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: alison
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 09:52 AM

forgot to say.. the grand finale of the fireworks was one of those long lingering ones that "waterfalls" down to earth... unfortunately it fell into bushland and started several bush fires (Rooty Hill for any Aussies)...... thankfully there were a few fire trucks there on display... and they sorted it out.........

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 12:50 PM

Sorry I'm late. I hope all of my fellow mudcats fron the land of Oz had a wonderful Aussie day. The computer was being a nauty little wench for the last few days. Again, happy belated Aussie day. May all of you see many many more. Kindest reguards, Neil PS Sink a few coldies for me!

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From:
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:06 AM

Thanks Mick. I forgive you. I am at the top of the Blue Mountains and it was hot even here. Our local park had some stalls and a barby and the Granting of Australian Citizenship ceremonies. It was all over by 3pm. The good thing about getting old is you don't mind an early closing.

Regards,

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Dug
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:23 AM

G'day to all the "ozcats"!

Message for Bob- The Alice Springs band Bloodwood recorded a great tune for The men who made Australia- it's on their "Still Battlin'" Album. Chris Kempster no doubt has various others.

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 04 Feb 01 - 10:56 PM

G'day Dug, (

Errr.. I inadvertently posted this to the wrong thread a minute ago ...)

Thanks for that reference - I will see if I can lay hands on that Bloodwood album (is a new one on CD or and older LP?). Offhand, I can't remember what other tunes Chris may have given in his book ... I have known this one for at least 34 years ... and it sort of sticks to me!

Sorry I did not respond earlier - As I explained to WYSIWYG, I had computer distractions ... as well as the carping episode in the thread BORING KNOWALLS.

It was nice to see that I don't bore everyone at Mudcat!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Dug
Date: 27 Nov 02 - 07:08 PM

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Nov 02 - 09:37 PM

... Errr... G'day Dug ... You awake?

I hope I didn't bore you to the extent of sending you off into a 22-month torpor!

Coincidentally, I just PM'd you a copy of the review I did, for Mulga Wire, December 2002, of your CD More than Europe Knows.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Aussie Day greetings to our Ozcats
From: Dug
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:03 PM

I'm awake now- and I just read your message. Thanks mate! Gotta go to bed again so that I can get up and watch the cricket.
Hopefully I won't sleep for 22 months. I read this thread before the other one on being a boring bastard. I'm sorry you had to suffer such ignorance. My message to you is...keep on doing what you do!