So far on tour I have been punched in my back on a bike path in Berlin, told that I was expecting a baby next year, my shower coin ran out whilst I still had conditioner in my hair and I sprained my ankle in Amsterdam and again in  Norderstedt.

In Berlin we filmed a video clip for our brand new spankin’ track titled ‘The Portrait of your Life’. For this film clip we were lucky enough to work with a very talented director and all round amazing chick Michalina Mrozek.  It was our first  day off in over 2 weeks and we ran around filming in Mauer Park, a slice of Newcastle beach in Berlin beside the Eastside Gallery with the famous Oberbaum Bridge as a backdrop, made noise on a tram (we got some very strange looks) and  pretty much acted like complete idiots for the day! Good times! Gareth and I insisted we had to go to our old stomping ground of Neukölln to eat City Chicken. It is the best chicken in the world – completely shits all over KFC. You get half a chicken, pita bread, chips and salad for 6 euros. In hindsight taking a vegetarian i.e. Jamie to a chicken place with literally a hundred chickens cooking in front of your eyes was probably NOT the best idea. But damn it’s good! On our walk to the chicken place I was slightly in the bike path and a psycho bike rider decided to punch me in my back. Luckily, I had my violin case on my back and it was quite hard. All I kept thinking was, “I hope he hurt his knuckles on my carbon-fibre Bam case”. I had never experienced anything like it while we were living in Berlin, so I was a bit shocked to say the least.

Speaking of crazy bike riders I think Amsterdam surpasses all other countries on the crazy-o-meter. We were all walking over a bridge, very close to the rail and got beeped at and yelled at constantly. We had to ask the guy at the caravan park if we were actually allowed to walk over the bridge. Seriously, bike riders rule Amsterdam. No one cares about pedestrians. In fact, you are a weirdo if you aren’t riding a bike. So on our last day in Amsterdam we rented bikes and rode around the country side – SOOOOO beautiful. My legs and butt are still extremely sore from the experience.

Last night I was approached by a man who said that when we come next year I will have a baby. EXCUSE ME? Seriously, if you are not 100% sure someone is pregnant would you really say that? Maybe I need to stop wearing that particular loose shirt. Anyway, the conversation became very awkward after that to say the least!

Now to talk about the rest of the band. Rach has only managed to step in dog shit once this entire trip, as well as stacked it in Amsterdam. Jamie got screamed at in a pub for taking a picture of the wrong thing. She was supposed to capture the fossil of a rat in a pub, funnily enough called DeRat and whilst she was taking a picture of the print of the fossil, a man who was very lovely and helpful the entire gig yelled at her for not getting the fossil!!!

Last but not least Gareth wants me to let you all know that his maximum speed on the autobahn was 185km/h. Good for you babe. You happy now?

Until next time,

Tad

One story that has stuck with me from my time in Aldeburgh, UK, is a conversation I overheard on the bus in to Snape Maltings one day. By telling you this story there is a slight possibility the females in question may actually read this blog. Lucky I don’t actually give a shit.

According to them someone was getting married at the age of 25. This shocked them and filled them with disgust. I heard them say, quite loudly I might add (just so you know I wasn’t desperately trying to eaves drop in on their conversation) that “that’s really young” while holding a resting bitchy face pose. As someone who was married at 24, turning 25 the next day, my opinion of these people is this:

Age to other people is only an issue if they are;

1.     Older than the person getting married

2.     Don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend themselves

3.     Have a boyfriend/girlfriend but don’t actually want to marry them

Just to be clear I am in no way saying that point 3 is a problem – not everyone wants to get married, totally a personal choice. The only reason that point may be a problem is if they actually do want to get married. Then they are either bitter that their partner hasn’t proposed, or they are not ‘in love’ with them enough to take the next step! End of rant.

Now to talk a bit about our last month traveling through Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. I finally got to meet my overseas family, which includes ALL of my Dad’s brothers and sisters and their children and grandchildren etc. One of my Aunties is a Nun – just saying. I also got to spend some time with my Mum’s cousin who was an absolute legend and did something quite crazy that I thought my husband may have been killed (unfortunately I can’t divulge any more info as it may cause arrest). But he is a TOTAL legend!!!

Mum and Dad were born in villages, and I have to say they are the most amazingly beautiful places I have ever seen. Dad was born in freaking paradise, and Mum was born in a village that has such a wonderful country feel to it! Much of these villages were destroyed in the war, which is totally ****ed up. However, the people have the best personalities and never whinge! We could learn a lot from them here in Oz. People don’t have as much but they have what they need. It was so refreshing to sit around a table and talk. What blew us away was that people don’t check their phones when they are socialising with people. You actually talk to those in front of you, those that are actually there in their physical form. Fancy that! No one goes on facebook to update their statuses on how much fun they are having (clearly not much if you have to go on shitbook to inform everyone).

All we did was eat and drink. Gareth had to drink Sljivovica (plum brandy), Bosnian coffee, fresh goats milk and a beer for breakfast. If you don’t believe me please refer to the pictures below. As for our weight loss before returning home, I will just say one thing, everything we ate was fresh from their land!

Since returning home, Gareth has decided to get our garden cracking. This was after he was inspired by our relatives. All I can say is, the man has a green thumb! You should come and check it out some time.

AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE – We have a show this Saturday night at the Newsagency in Marrickville, Sydney. Would totally love to see you there and play some of our new tunes to you fine people. You can get tickets from here

http://www.stickytickets.com.au/12795/hudson_arc_w_imogen_clark.aspx

Finally, I would like to say we’re going to be touring in Germany again next April! CAN NOT WAIT! Hope to see you Germanians at a gig J.

Until next time,

Tad x

According to my very intelligent sister, Dr. Ilicic, I don’t know the appropriate places to put commas in my blog. My grammar is nicht so gut. My excuse is that I don’t usually breathe when I talk, so therefore I should just write sentences as I would say them. To all the other grammar police, my deepest apologies if I have offended you and you now want to make one of those annoying posts on facebook about me.

Moving on, one of the more terrifying experiences while living in Berlin was sitting in an orchestra with possibly the only deskie that couldn’t speak English. My minimal German skills at the time only got me so far as finding out her name and asking her if she was married. Thank you German school for giving me that at least! The conductor was yelling out bar numbers in German faster than my brain could process them. It’s all backwards in German too e.g. vierhundertsiebenunddreißig is 400 hundred 7 and 30 which is how you would say 437 - it takes a long time to get your head around, well mine at least! Knowing what the conductor was saying was almost impossible, and because I couldn’t ask my deskie what the hell he was on about I had to pretend to understand – this is even more hardcore than air bowing. I learnt the bare minimum in German music expressions from a lovely girl in Salzburg. I was sitting in on masterclasses in German (mind you they were supposed to be conducted in English), anyway, she was kind enough to write a list in the notes section of my phone, which I still have to this day. Lucky you can get the jist of what someone wants musically by their tone and body language, or else I would have made an arse of myself.

On our farewell day/night in Germany, Gareth decided to jump in the river spree, which is the main river in Berlin. We all pleaded with him not to. I even threatened divorce but that still didn’t help! It was about 10pm at night and we had just hired a boat with 6 of our friends for a few hours. We had a wonderful bbq and some very funny driving experiences. It is obvious I haven’t driven in over a year because as soon as I was in charge of the boat I ended up doing a 360. Back to Gareth having a swim in the river spree – a random Berliner came up to us and said “you know that the water is very dirty, he should get out now,” to which we replied in unison “yes, we know!” Hiring a random boat and being allowed to take it in the main river in Berlin, without supervision or a licensed boat driver, just wouldn’t happen in Australia. Could you imagine the paperwork! All we had to do was leave a ‘Kaution’ A.K.A Bond and off we went (with a suitcase full of beers of course). 

We had our last Hudson Arc gig in Germany for the year a few weeks ago. It was a stifling 39 degrees and we had to play 2 sets in a room that had no fans, let alone air-conditioning. I can honestly say, I have never seen Gareth sweat so much. I mean, his shirt was absolutely drenched after the first song. We thought moving the performance outdoors would be a bit of a relief from the heat, but it was actually worse. While playing Beds Are Burning I had about 10 mosquitoes sucking my blood simultaneously. Gareth complimented me on my Peter Garrett dance moves.

On Friday 2nd of August, as many of you already know by my anger on facebook, I missed my flight to London for the Britten-Pears Orchestra. I even showed Gareth both The 4:25am and 4:35am alarms on my phone. I seriously don’t remember even hearing them – I have a tendency to talk and walk in my sleep so perhaps this is what happened. I literally got up at 6:30am, my flight was pretty much leaving at that time. We jumped out of bed, I threw on whatever clothes were next to me and ran out the door. It was also my last day in Berlin so I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to the apartment. I woke up poor Emily at 6am (she is the amazing chick that runs everything in the UK), I started to cry and forgot to tell her who the hell I was, so for a couple of minutes she was calming down some hysterical, crazy person that missed their flight. This isn’t the worst part – I couldn’t even have a shower and as I was walking through airport security I got felt-up (by a very nice lady). This is when I realised I didn’t shave my armpits AND they are seriously hairy. Damn my wog genes. The flight place booked me on the 11am flight, then when I went to check in apparently I wasn’t on the system! I had to call the travel agents again in the UK. Apparently British Airway cancelled the booking. What a great freaking start to the day! In the end it was fine and I finally made it there just in time for the first rehearsal!

I am now in Croatia with my hubby on a little holiday before we come home! I will tell you more about it in my next blog and try to be more frequent. This blog was completed a month ago it is just that I have been a bit of a hectoid this last month!

Thanks for reading and I’ll be back with more soon.


Until next time,
Tad x

So the other day Gareth and I realised how fat we have gotten this year from eating delicious food and drinking too much German beer. We didn’t want to come back to Australia as the couple that put on crap loads of weight whilst overseas so we decided to go for a walk. I wanted to show Gareth how fit I was by attempting to do speed intervals. After I told him what I as doing he said “don’t you require speed to call it speed interval training” – what a smart arse! Suffice to say I am now sweating like a pig as someone that hasn’t exercised properly in over 5 years.

We leave Berlin in a week and have been trying to fit as much in as possible. A lot of it includes trying a few places our friend Matthew (from Newcastle but we met him in Berlin funnily enough) suggested we eat at – like Burrito Baby and a crepe place. While walking to these wonderful places along the gorgeous canal near our house we were breathing deeply, soaking up the fresh air along with the pungent smell of dog shit, only to have a man stop in front of us in broad daylight and pull out his penis and begin urinating right in front of us. You’re all class Berlin!

Here are some interesting facts about living in Berlin;

1. You must have a beer or radler (shandy) as a roadie at all times. It is just completely un-berlinish to NOT drink while walking to the U-bahn or police station or even up the road to get the groceries. Oh how I will miss the freedom!
2. You may urinate wherever and whenever you like. Just the other day I saw a lady taking a dump behind the bushes on the main path along the canal. When Gareth asked how I knew she was doing a number 2 I said it was her scrunched up face and deep concentration.
3. You must eat doner kebabs regularly. They are on every corner and usually cost 2.50 euros to 4. Trust me the durum doner for 3,90 euros from Mustafas is a must.
4. You NEVER have to pick up your dog shit. Just leave it in the middle of the walkway - it’s all good.
5. There are no rules.

Last week as many of you already know Hudson Arc toured the North of Germany. We were joined by Paul Liddell from the UK and had loads of fun and dramas. Every time I nagged Gareth or questioned something the boys were doing Paul would suggest putting it in my blog. I think he was taking the piss most of the time. Most of you that know me at all, know that I am not the kind of girl that wants to sleep on a couch in a place that smells of smoke. Scrap the smoke, sleeping on a couch in general is never comfortable. I mean seriously, who would choose to sleep on a couch over a bed? Your legs are all squishy and you can’t roll over (I know what you’re thinking – pull out your little violin).

I have added some pics of the venues we played at below AND if you want to check out our live un-amplified gig in Rensow go to the video section of this website. You won’t regret it – there is an amazing dog and kid in the video.

Until next time,
Tad xx

Ok so I am a little embarrassed to admit this but I just wrote an entire blog in the title section and then accidentally deleted it! Yes I am that technologically challenged. 

I am not sure where to start...I guess it seemed about time that Hudson Arc got its own blog and because I enjoy talking so much I thought it should be me. Apparently if you are in a band people want to know more about you and blogging is a great way to get chummy. This advice also consisted of telling people what kind of pants you are wearing at the time of blogging. Apparently this is of great interest to people - I think NOT! But if you are interested I am wearing a pair of poo coloured trackies that have a hole in the crotch that my cousin Kristina gave me from her flight on Emirates. You see, when I first moved to Germany I stayed with her for a few weeks. My suitcase was overflowing (as you could imagine), although thanks to my Mother's amazing packing skills I somehow managed to fit a gazillion pairs of shoes and pretty much my entire wardrobe in there - minus my trackies. 

So it turns out that Gareth and I have been in Europe for almost a year! It is crazy how fast the time has gone. Even though about 7 months of it was bloody freezing and the snow was around for most of that time. During this time we have been lucky enough to go on tour and play to and meet so many amazingly cool people. We also attended a German language course for a month - it was an intense 4 hours/day. In hindsight it probably would have been beneficial to learn a bit of German BEFORE moving to Germany! Touring and playing took priority and it turns out we know enough to get around. I use the term 'enough' loosely. Plus, it is hard to learn when almost everyone you converse with starts speaking back to you in English as soon as they hear your totally 'Non-German' accent. Everyone does not include tax office administration, police or anyone you are in dire need to speak to in English. 

This Sunday we are going on tour through the Northern parts of Germany with Paul Liddell from the UK! We got to tour with this crazy talented guy in the UK when we went over there in April/May. We have some new songs - Gareth has been working hard on songs for the new album and I think I am allowed to say he is pretty much done. What a legend! Am I allowed to compliment him or does it seem biased because I am his wife? 

I will endeavour to stay connected through this blog! Below are some photos of us on our travels. The first is my reaction after eating snails for the first time! I also wanted everyone to see how natural Gareth looks when he plays violin - what a bow hold! He was showing off by playing  'Smoke on the Water'. He also seems to attract feral cats everywhere we go. Until next time - 
Stay safe!
Tad