Behold the dark fowls of the air: they sow not,
neither reap, nor gather in barns;
yet the Lord of all that Flies increaseth us.
The only God who comes when called.
~
Just remember.
No matter how clever you creep up upon the mirror
Your reflection always looks at you
Straight in the eye.
On top of the hill, in my old childhood suburb, I sat and stared off into the distance. It was a grey day and the sun was sinking low behind a long spine of clouds that stretched beyond the Cooks River. That winding, muddy river where I used to walk alone for hours after school, listening to my sony discman. My favorite song back then was called Wolf Moon, and I used to find it such a darkly romantic song. The perfect soundtrack to my naive teenage angst, as I sat in the mangroves and watched the river flow by.
I don't know how I ended up on this hill. I had long since moved on from this place. But here I was.
I looked down the hill towards the nature strip that lined the road, right by the school for special children.
That nature strip, where I used to play tag with the neighborhood kids, seemed so much bigger back then. The school was still the same though. A small, empty school where I used to ride my skateboard after the special kids had left for the day. I used to find it such a peaceful place. But now it just seemed sad and empty.
I walked down the hill towards the park with the dead grass and cricket pitch encased in a rusty cage. I had spent so many hours in that park, throwing balls to my brothers and chasing them around the old cage. We used to climb all over that cage. It was our obstacle course. The concrete cricket pitch underneath the cage was the lava. We were like monkeys, swinging ourselves around the cage. We'd drop ourselves onto the grass and race to the old soccer goal posts at the end of the park. We'd climb up and down those tall, metal goal posts and see who was fastest.
By the time I reached the park, the sky had turned black. The park sat just in front of my childhood house. A huge house that the kids in the neighborhood thought belonged to a witch. It was a house with many pointed frames, almost like a large, wooden church.
I entered the park and walked to the middle of the grassy field, beyond the rusty cricket cage, and sat on the grass. I was surrounded by the night and the shadows.
Nobody could see me there in the black park. I sat silently and watched the lights in my old childhood house. I watched the outlines of people move inside the windows. I saw the shadow of my mother through the window, her crazy, curly hair unmistakable. She was moving around upstairs. I saw my dad. I heard his deep, booming voice calling me for dinner. "Willy! Wiiilllly! Dinner's ready." I smiled to myself as I sat there, letting the memories and my imagination take over.
Sitting in the dark, I felt like the bogeyman. Nobody could see me there.
"What are you doing here?"
I looked up. "Why are you sitting out here in the dark?"
Johahn had found me. I felt a bit embarrassed. She must have thought I’m weird, sitting out here alone.
"What are you looking at?" Johahn asked me.
"Oh, I'm just watching my old house. The lights. I can see people in there."
Johahn looked confused as she turned towards my old house.
"There's no one there."
I followed her puzzled gaze towards the old, dark house that looked like it belonged to a witch. There were no lights and it looked like it had been empty for years.
"Come on, let's go" said Johahn as she smiled at me. "You're such a strange man."
I got up and we left the park together, walking towards the river in the distance.
The botanic gardens had been transformed into a giant, luscious forest. The night sky was brilliant and impossibly starry, like a Van Gough painting, making the forest both dark and bright simultaneously. The forest itself was large and it would take at least an hour to cross, end to end, if one moved through it at a brisk pace.
The forest was a strange mixture of lush, dense foliage and urban decay, with traces of humanity. It was a city forest that somehow felt both remote and urban. Scattered throughout the forest were old shopping trollies, garbage and, strangest of all, passed-out ravers and party people from the many rows of nightclubs that now populated Martin Place. These people would take epic party drugs at the clubs and raves and then go into the forest and sleep for days. Sleeping off the drugs. They didn’t care at all.
On either side of the forest were grassy knolls that marked the forest’s edge. Beyond the grassy knolls were imposingly tall, dark skyscrapers that looked more like Gotham City than Sydney.
Johahn and I crossed the forest to the grassy knoll on the Martin Place side and found a telescope on a hill. The telescope was somehow focused at an impossible angle. Looking through the telescope’s glass, I could see the grassy knoll on the other side of the forest, through the trees. The telescope was angled up the gradient of the distant knoll, which looked through the grass to a view of the beautiful, swirling starry sky. The sky was dense with stars, galaxies, moons and planets, illuminating the forest in a blue light. It was mesmerising.
Johahn had an idea. “Why don’t you go to the knoll on the other side of the forest and I can take some amazing photos of you through this telescope glass.”
I said “Okay, but wait for me and I’ll call you when I’m there and we can coordinate it.” I knew it would take me at least an hour to cross the forest and I would have to move quickly.
There was only one trail that crossed the forest , but it was faster for me to go off the trail and through the dense forest to the other grassy knoll. It was a more direct route to go off-trial and I didn’t want Johahn to be left waiting too long. I wanted to cross to the other knoll as quickly as possible.
So I set off into the forest briskly, parting the leaves and dense shrubs with my hands.
Before long I came across a small, attractive girl who was passed out in the foliage, lying under ferns. She looked like she had come from a rave in the city. She was wearing a dishevelled, tiny dress that was exposing her naked body. I thought she must have taken some potent drugs and she was sleeping it off. I stopped and looked at her, but it felt wrong to stare because she was exposed. I felt bad for her because I knew she could easily be taken advantage of, lying almost naked in this forest near the city. But I felt I should keep moving. I didn’t want to keep Johahn waiting too long.
I looked up and saw the trail ahead, and a group of friendly looking people moving along it. I turned and looked back in the direction I’d come from and I saw another small group of friendly looking people moving in my direction. I thought that they would likely find this passed out girl and take care of her. I convinced myself that she would be okay.
Glancing once more at the sleeping girl, I kept moving through the trees and vines, deeper into the forest. Even though it was nighttime, my visibility was very clear. The forest was so bright from the brilliant, shining stars in the sky above me.
Johahn was waiting for me so I had to move fast.
As I made my way through the trees, I would go between traversing dense foliage and then hitting the thin, winding trail that threaded through the forest. Weaving in and out.
Then I came across the same passed out raver girl again. Almost naked, and sleeping just off the trail amidst a patch of low weeds. Somehow she’d been moved to this place. I stopped and looked at her again. It felt very strange. For some reason I knew she had been sleeping in this forest for days now. Was she dead? No, she was clearly breathing and sleeping. She looked peaceful. Those drugs she’d taken, whatever they were, must have been incredibly powerful.
Suddenly, some old hippies called to me from behind a dense thicket of bushes. These hippies were guys whom I went to university with. Old friends. They seemed really excited to see me. “Hey dude, come here.” I followed their voices and saw them gathered around a trap door in the forest floor. “Dude, check out this room! It is awesome down here.” I paused for a moment and thought about the plan I had with Johahn. She was waiting patiently. “This won’t take long” I thought to myself.
I went down the trapdoor with the hippies. It led into a huge, flooded underground room full of broken cement, plastic bottles and detritus. The hippies then began trying to convince me to move into the room and start renting it. This had turned into a bizarre room inspection. They were trying really hard to convince me to sign a rental contract. “Dude, it has so much potential down here. This room is huge.” They looked at me full of hope and expectation.
Squinting through the shadows, I looked around the room. Water dripped from the ceiling, hitting the dirty, gray pools below. It looked like a horrible place to live, but the hippies were so excited about it.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I began to notice just how big the room was. It was almost the size of a school gymnasium. “Dude, you can dredge all the water out of here and convert it into an amazing art gallery. You’ve got the money, man. You can do it!” The hippies were becoming urgent.
Surveying my filthy surroundings, I thought “well, I guess I could set up one side of this giant room as my living area, and maybe divide it with a nice, red curtain. And the rest of the room could be an art gallery. I could throw huge underground art parties down here. That might work. But how will I breath? It’s completely underground, with the small trapdoor as the only entryway and exit. I’ll need to create some ventilation somehow.” It seemed like a logistical nightmare.
I began to wonder how I had become so easily sidetracked on my journey through the forest and I felt bad about keeping Johahn waiting for me. I imagined her sitting by the telescope, wondering where I was. I looked at my phone and saw that she had tried to call me.
I suddenly woke up and Johahn could tell that I’d been dreaming. She asked me “what happened?”
“Well, you know Martin Place? You know where it leads to the botanic gardens? The gardens had changed into this huge forest, full of luscious foliage and passed-out ravers and party people. Martin place was populated by many rows of nightclubs. Just outside the forest, on the Martin Place side, was a grassy knoll underneath this unbelievably beautiful starry sky. And we found this telescope…”
I am very lucky in that one of my brothers is a trained nurse and my other brother (the one who rescued me) is strong as a bull and has been through his own rehab for serious injuries in the past. He is eventually going to help me rehabilitate in a pool, which is an excellent way to learn how to walk again. Submerged up to my neck, 90% of my body weight will be supported by water. I can rebuild strength this way and this is a future goal of mine.
The real test begins now. I am non-weight bearing for 8 weeks. Time to start wriggling my toes and try to resurrect my leg. I’ll channel Uma Thurman in Kill Bill - “wriggle your toes!”
First step is keeping circulation healthy, lots of blood thinners and keeping my leg elevated. I must avoid clotting at all costs in this delicate stage.
My next steps will be to get lots of sleep, eating a perfect diet and beginning a regime of small exercises to get this new, metal leg of mine moving.
They have me in a leg brace that I am able to unlock and bend to 90 degrees once my leg heals. The plates and screws holding my knee together are going to help new bone to grow and eventually, with time, I’ll have a new knee. I’ll be going for regular follow up X-rays to chart my progress. Eugene Chung is a master surgeon and he completed a very complicated procedure for me. I am lucky that I was able to secure his services.
The mind is a powerful thing and I can heal my body with it. I believe in mind over matter. I will walk again!
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To be better by-far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To be willing to give when there’s no more to give
To be willing to die so that honor and justice may live
And if only I stay true to this glorious quest
My heart will be peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest
I had been struggling with the upcoming album artwork for Three Rings and Ten Moons.
Megii, an artistic kindred of mine, has sent me a beautiful concept for the album cover:
When I make new songs I usually noodle around on my guitar a bit before eventually finding a riff that I like. Then I write some lyrics to match that riff and try to sing them in a matching vocal melody. After I've written some lyrics I'll often record a video of the newly written riff and vocal melody so that I don't forget it. Kinda like a visual diary of little song ideas.
I've decided to post 2 videos of the early creation of 2 songs from my new, upcoming album Three Rings And Ten Moons.
These videos are very raw and they show what a new song looks like when it's being freshly figured out. The songs have been developed a lot since they were originally created and you'll hear them in full on my upcoming release.
Working on my new album. I have all the songs finished. There are 13 in total. The album will be titled "Three Rings and Ten Moons."
1. Three Rings and Ten Moons
2. Name Blotted Out Forever
3. Darkness Shines
4. Hidden Sun
5. Omen of Short Days and Short Years
6. Deepest Depths Sang
7. Unlaced
8. Descend Beneath The Moon
9. The Glacier I Sleep Inside
10. On Saturday
11. Where Grey Clouds Pass Me By
12. Church of Fish
13. Pisces is Leviathan
It will be similar to the first half of my previous album Lord of Circles. Mostly acoustic guitar ballads and soundscapes.
My talented friend Will Colvin has started a new record label called Safeword HQ which will nurture creative talent in the Sydney music scene.
Will has enlisted me as Artist Manager, in a role where he will pay me to manage a suite of artists who are attached to the Safeword HQ label. I will also be likely releasing future Paneye music on this label.
Please check out the website and show your support: Safeword HQ
https://safewordhq.com/safeword-hq
Here's some of Will Colvin's music when he was performing as Hedgefund:
Since this blog's humble beginnings in 2009 I have recently experienced a huge spike in views and engagement. I want to thank all of you who have viewed, listened to and purchased my art and music.
According to my stats page (posted below) I am regularly clocking in over 2K individual views every month. My all time views are now up to 122K.
Just phenomenal. Honestly, artists don't like to admit it but we are hugely spurred on by knowing that we have an audience of people that appreciate our work. Thanks all! It encourages me to produce more art and music into the future.
Lord of Circles can be listened to for free, or purchased at this link:
Eaten By Birds
Lord of Circles
