The Hawaiian Shirt Day 2012 (properly called the 10th Aloha! Pro Blues & Roots Show) is this year’s incarnation of an annual event that raises money for charity. This year the event raised over $A3,000 for the Cancer Support Group.

(I’m diverting from posting on my visit to New York last year for this post on an event here in Canberra from last weekend).

Roger Bone, Bernie Keenan, Doug Curry (bass), Roger Bone Band

I didn’t get to see the Backbeat Drivers or Little Mac and the Monster Men and the first band I have to show you is the Roger Bone Band, who generated a lot of energy and got many people up on their feet, dancing.  (The Roger Bone Band are relatively newly formed and don’t appear to have a presence on the web).

Bernie Keenan, Roger Bone Band

Roger Bone, Roger Bone Band

Roger Bone Band

UROK (Ukulele Republic of Canberra)

Next up was UROK (the Ukulele Republic of Canberra) who mainly play “old time music”, not necessarily Blues.

Chris Mawer, Bernie Keenan, James Keith, Chris Mawer Band

Chris Mawer is always worth taking time out to see, whether playing solo or with a band.  A national-level Blues musician, he was playing here unrehearsed with two local musicians but that didn’t seem to make any difference.  One of the musicians for the next band was held up arriving from a different gig so we got to hear a few extra tracks from Chris.  A good band to hear extra from.  (Music on MySpace).

James Keith, Chris Mawer Band

Chris Tomonich, Chris Mawer Band

Chris Mawer, Chris Mawer Band

Chris Mawer, Chris Mawer Band

James Brown, Chris Mawer Band

Mitch Preston (Alison Penney)

Alison Penney was on next.  Although a national-level Blues musician, she is well known to us in Canberra and lived here briefly last year.  Though she plays here with Canberra musicians, she has her own band Alison Penney and the Moneymakers and has also played with many rhythm and blues bands around the country.  (Music on MySpace).

Alison Penney

Dave Blanken, Mitch Preston, Phill Jenkins, Alison Penney (Alison Penney)

Phil Jenkins (Alison Penney)

Dave Blanken (Alison Penney)

Alison Penney

(In this image as for some of the others, one of the leis we were all awarded at the door is fluorescing under the LED lights).

Fiona Boyes

Fiona Boyes provided the climax of the night, accompanied by local musicians and Alison Penny.   Although Fiona lives in Canberra, she is an international Blues musician and has played with many eminent Blues musicians in the States including Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins, Bob Margolin and Marcia Ball.  (Web site; music on MySpace).

Mitch Preston (Fiona Boyes)

Phil Jenkins (Fiona Boyes)

Fiona Boyes, Mitch Preston, Phill Jenkins, Alison Penney (Fiona Boyes)

Fiona Boyes, Mitch Preston, Phill Jenkins, Alison Penney (Fiona Boyes)

Fiona Boyes

There are 23 images in this post.  If you want to see more from this event, click on this link for a JAlbum slideshow with 58 images.

Les Paul Trio

We had intended to turn up to see Duke Robillard but accidentally turned up to a Jazz band.  Duke Robillard was the next night.  Fortunately, they were very good indeed.

Les Paul Trio

As well as that, the audience was quite small and we were able to sit very close to the band.

Les Paul Trio with Marshall Crenshaw on the right

Les Paul invented the solid bodied electric guitar which was eventually commercialised as the Gibson Les Paul.  He also invented overdubbing (multi-track recording) and a number of techniques that later became influential in Blues and rock.

Marshall Crenshaw & the Les Paul Trio

Les Paul was primarily a Jazz musician.  For many years he played every Monday night at the Iridium Club up until his death in 2009.  There are obviously more than three people here but I think it includes two of the trio who played with Les Paul.

31 October 2011

The previous night we had turned up at the Iridium, intending to see Duke Robillard and saw the Les Paul Trio instead.  This night we saw Duke Robillard (music on MySpace).

Les Paul was also watching on from the wall.

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Duke Robillard is a Blues musician who also plays Jazz.  Most of his CDs are Blues but some are entirely Jazz.

He cofounded the band Roomful of Blues in 1967, which still continues to this day and left it in 1980.

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From 1990 to 1993 he played with The Fabulous Thunderbirds but after leaving Roomful of Blues has generally played in his own bands.

It was another great night of Blues with a small audience in an intimate setting.

1 November 2011

On the evening of the 2nd of November we turned up at Terra Blues to see Studebaker John.  This is the support musician, whose name unfortunately I do not remember.

Initially there was no seating available close to the band but some people left after the support act finished and we were able to get a seat in front of the stage and (for me at any rate) fuel up on single malt.

This is Studebaker John.  I had picked up a CD of his in Canberra about fifteen years earlier so I was interested to see him and had some idea of what to expect.

As you can see, this is his bass player, whose name is Rick Kreher.

Studebaker John plays Chicago Blues, coming as he does from Chicago.  Here they were playing mainly in the feel of their then-current album Maxwell Street Kings which he describes as the raw, less-is-more sound that I first heard on Chicago’s Maxwell St.

There was a guest harmonica player on some tracks.

I don’t know the name of the drummer.  There was a different drummer on the CD.

(Web page.  Music on MySpace).

Another great night at Terra Blues.

2 November 2011.

Most of the Blues musicians we saw in New York were old hands, having honed their craft over several decades.  John Nemeth, though is a relative newcomer.  (Web site; Tracks on MySpace)

I might have been able to identify the other members of the band from the CDs I bought but the liner notes of the more recent one are cemented together due to a leak of rainwater into the house from an overflowing gutter.  The CDs survived OK though.

John is evidently not the only one in the band who wears a hat.

This is John Nemeth, also in the first image and the following ones.

He has been “on the scene” since about 2002.  He is an accomplished singer, sometimes more in the style of Soul than Blues, insofar as there is a dividing line.  The music is definitely Blues rather than Soul, though.

Testament to his vocal ability is that he has played with the seminal Texas Rhythm & Blues band Anson Funderburg and the Rockets, filling in for the wonderful blind vocalist and harmonica player Sam Myers, who sadly died in 2006.  I was fortunate enough to see Anson Funderburg and the Rockets playing with Sam Myers at the Narooma Blues Festival, probably in 2004 or 2005, but that was before I became Photographer for the festival so I can’t show you any images of that.

A most enjoyable night of very smooth Blues at Terra Blues.

3 November 2011.

We had set aside our last night in New York for a concert by Joe Bonamassa.  I’d booked the tickets before we left Australia, from the Madison Square Gardens website.  As it happens we were staying just across the road from Madison Square Gardens and we went early to pick up the tickets and then came back for the show.  It was only then that it dawned on me that the line we had joined was for Julio Inglesias – definitely not our choice of performer.  Looking closer at the ticket I saw that it was for a concert at the Beacon Theatre, wherever that might be….

Back across the road, a doorman for our hotel instantly knew who we wanted to see and where the concert was.  He hailed a taxi for us and sent us on our way.  By the time we got there we were only about ten minutes late.

As it turned out, the Beacon Theatre was a wonderful ornate three-tiered theatre from times past and a much better place to be than Madison Square Gardens.  It opened in 1929 for vaudeville acts, musical productions, drama, opera and silent film.  In 1979 it was  designated a national landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  From 1974 it has been a live music venue and has featured many acts including the Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, James Taylor, Radiohead, and Queen.  The Allman Brothers played more then two hundred times here and Bill Clinton had a private birthday party here in 2006 featuring the Rolling Stones.

Joe Bonamassa is in the centre, in the spotlight.  Rick Melick is on the keyboards to the left, Tal Bergman on the drums to the right and Carmine Rojas on the bass at the front right.   I can tell you this because I’m reading their names off the liner notes of the DVD and CD released of this concert.  (To be precise, there were two nights and the DVD/CD selects from both).

Joe had several guests.  The first of these is singer Beth Hart, in the spotlight at front left.  She has frequently collaborated with Joe Bonamassa, particularly on Don’t Explain, a joint cover album of Blues classics.   She is touring Europe with him in 2013.

Here we have a wider view that reveals some of the majesty of the Beacon Theatre.  There are a couple of nine-metre tall Greek goddesses flanking the stage.  Well, to be pedantic, they are actually flanking a proscenium arch (though it’s square in this case) so that the audience has a restricted viewpoint and doesn’t see the action from the side or the back.  This was a Roman invention which is why it has perhaps some relevance here, in context of the classical decor including lions, frescoes and columns.

You might think I have used a wider lens here, or panned and joined multiple images together.  But no, remember all my photos in New York were taken with a Fujifilm X100, which in conventional 35mm film terms has a prime lens with a focal length of 35mm.  What you see is the scope of the lens; other images are cropped in, considerably.

When I made the booking I got the cheap tickets in the top tier, thinking that the sound’s going to be just as good up there, not particularly thinking about photographic possibilities.  So this is a test of getting interesting images with a camera relatively unsuited to the occasion.  Just don’t expect any head-and-shoulder portraits.  The images still look fine though if you click on them for a much larger view.

Next musical guest was John Hiatt, a name that will be familiar to many of you.  A renowned singer/ songwriter, his style is somewhere between Blues, folk-rock and country.  His songs have been recorded with a kaleidoscope of eminent performers.  For example, his song Riding with the King was recorded by Eric Clapton and B.B. King.

Here we have Joe Bonamassa and band, flanked by the two Greek Goddesses.  I’d better talk about Joe now.  Joe comes from a family with many generations of musicians and was something of a child prodigy, opening for BB King at the age of twelve.  He is primarily a Blues guitarist.  He also has a fine singing voice though on this occasion all the guests were singers and provided an extra breadth of style to the concert.  The concert moods ranged from something like stadium rock to quiet lyrical interludes and searing Blues guitar solos.  The guests played some of their own material and most of the rest were Bonamassa originals.  Covers ranged from Leonard Cohen to Gary Moore to the Who (though that in itself was a Mose Allison cover).

The last guest was Paul Rogers.  Paul is not to be confused with the late Jimmy Rogers who was a guitarist for Muddy Waters  or with Roy Rogers who is a noteworthy slide guitarist who played with John Lee Hooker.  (And those two in return are not to be confused with the country musicians Jimmy Rogers and Roy Rogers).  Paul Rogers is an English singer/ songwriter who has been prominent since the early 1970s.  He has played with a number of bands including Free and Bad Company and for the last two or three decades has mainly performed solo.

Here we are at the climax of the concert, with Joe on his toes delivering the crescendo to a searing guitar solo.  People had started jumping up in front of me and moving around and it was difficult to find a clear view for a photo.

Just a few minutes later, this is the final applause and the band has just stopped playing.

This is a chandelier in the lobby on the way out, illustrating the grand display of the Beacon Theatre.  At the time I thought the theatre to be older than it was because it reminded me in style of some theatres in Australia and New Zealand from late Victorian or Edwardian eras (say 1880-1910).  Of course, it was reflecting the imperial glory of the silent screen moguls rather than the imperial glory of the British Empire.  The candles in the candelabra, therefore, were presumably always electric.

A stirring, memorable performance, fitting for our last night in New York.

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I will probably have only one or two posts in the next month as I have a Blues Festival or two to photograph.  I will resume later with a series on lighthouses taken mainly on large format equipment in 1987.

Thredbo Blues Festival 2013 took place over three days and nights on a weekend at the end of January.

Andy Cowan, Andy Cowan Band

This is Andy Cowan on keys.  Andy and his band have been regular visitors to Thredbo Festivals and have always been a delight.  He told me that he was about to retire to pursue other interests and that this might be the last performance for the band, which has been together for ten years.

Andy has a distinctive piano playing style and singing voice.  In earlier decades he was prominent in bands such as Ayer’s Rock.  His band includes Gavan Anderson (lead guitar) and Jimmy Sloggett (Saxaphone), both also distinguished musicians.

Andy Cowan’s website.  A single song on MySpace.

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Bridie King with Ali Penney and Pat Powell

Bridie King plays Blues and Boogie piano and appeared in Thredbo with a great band.

Bridie started her career with Balmain (Sydney) Rhythm & Blues band the Hippos and there is more than a hint of the Hippos in this lineup with Hippos band leader John Power  on bass and Lez Karski on lead guitar.  There is also Rosscoe Clark on drums and  another female band member (flute, piano) whose name I don’t know, as well as Pat Powell (vocals, percussion) and Alison Penney (piano) on some numbers.

Website, music on MySpace.

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Continental Blues Party

Continental Blues Party is another great swinging band – Soul, Funk and Blues.  Band leader is Robert Susz (formerly of the Dynamic Hepnotics and the Mighty Reapers) and on the right we see Illya Szwec as lead guitarist.  Pat Powell (vocals) also appeared for some numbers.

Music on MySpace (one track), Robert Susz on MySpace.

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Don Hopkins and Rob Grosser, Dr Don’s Double Dose

Dr Don’s Double Dose is a two-man Rhythm & Blues band inspired by musicians such as Fats Domino.  Don Hopkins plays piano (and not just with his hands it seems) and Rob Grosser plays drums.  Always dependable for a great performance.

Website.

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Gary Lothian, Cyril B. Bunter Band

The Cyril B Bunter Band really hit the spot at the Festival, despite not having performed for nearly thirty years.  They are a band from the 70s and 80s and George Thorogood took one of their tracks as the feature track for his 1985 album “Boogie People“.

Here we see Gary Lothian on lead guitar.  There was also Jimmy Bee (bass and vocals), Rosscoe Clark on drums and Alison Penney on Keyboards.

Video on U-Tube

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Faye Blais

Faye Blais is a Canadian musician with a “jazzy-bluesy folk style”, playing in the Festival accompanied by two Australian musicians.

Web site; music on MySpace.

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Gail Page

Gail Page is another regular at Thredbo, with a great voice that can keep on going if the power fails.  Gail always has great bands and her current lineup includes Adam Pringle (lead guitar), Rob Woolf (piano), James Haselwood (bass) and Declan Kelly (drums).

Music on MySpace.

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Marco Goldsmith Band

Marco Goldsmith turned up this year with his new band, “an eclectic soul/blues band that is laced with a country/ bluegrass quirk”, including Kare Berg and Rod Hoe.  Many years ago in Thredbo I saw him playing solo and in recent years he has usually turned up with his large swinging band Blue Heat, complete with an impressive brass ensemble.  That’s compelling listening, so is the Marco Goldsmith Band.

Music on MySpace.

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John Prior, Matt Finish

Matt Finish is a band that has been around for a long time, having formed in 1979.  The band is somewhat changed, though, following the death of Matt Moffitt, one of the founders, in 2003.  Their period of greatest success was probably in the early 80s, they are as much a Rock band as a Blues band and still well worth listening to.  The lineup in Thredbo included John Prior, Elliott Weston, Nick Meredith and Peter Astley.

Website (includes videos)

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Owen Campbell

Owen Campbell is a slide guitarist and singer who “blends blues, roots, soul and country”.   He originally hailed from Queanbeyan (near Canberra) but is now based elsewhere, probably in Sydney.   He was playing with a drummer and a bass guitarist whose names I don’t know.

Video lips on U-Tube.

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Shannon Bourne,  Shannon Bourne Band

Shannon Bourne brought his accomplished band to the Festival.  Starting off a few years ago as a sidekick to Chris Wilson, he played here with Richard Tankard (Piano), Karl Willebrant (bass) and Adrian Violi (drums).

Website (with music from Reverberation on Audio & Video tab)

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Swamphouse/ dancefloor

Swamphouse – the name says it all really, with a sound that might as well come from the swamps of Louisiana.  Nicholas Churkin on Drums, Gary Lothian on Lead guitar (also in Cyril B Bunter Band) and Mike Rix on bass.

Website (with some tracks on the Music tab)

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The Others

The Others are a band from Adelaide who formed in early 1963, so have been going as long as the Rolling Stones, an English band that you may have heard of.  Somewhere between Blues, Rhythm & Blues and Rock, the Others include Ian Nancarrow (harmonica/ guitar/ vocals), Paul Reading (vocals), Jeff Gurr (bass), Ivan Korovljev (lead guitar) and George Abbott-Young (drums).   Well worth checking out.

Website (with a few sample downloads)

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Tom Richardson’s Project

Tom Richardson’s Project is an energetic band of young Blues musicians  from Victoria.  Tom has received a whole spectrum of awards as an emerging young Blues musician.  The band includes, Daniel Paroissien, Brenton Smith, Jacob Gellert and Matt Hewson.

Music on MySpace.

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Pat Powell and Robert Susz

Finally, here is a shared moment with Pat Powell and Robert Susz during a performance of the Continental Blues Party.

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There are many more images.  On the Thredbo Blues Festival Page you will find links to images from the 2013 Festival, as well the previous seven festivals .  Links for 2013 include top 100 images, selected monochromes and one for each of the 20 bands.  These include other bands not mentioned above including Blackwood Jack, Geneveive Chadwick, Jonno Zilber, Jules Boult & the Redeemers,  Lisa Ohlback Band and Tangled Weed.

Alternatively, there is also a direct overall link to all 2013 images in JAlbum (with overview images and images by band organised by folder).  There are 270 images in all.

For other images of a particular band I may have taken since 2006, see the Musicians and Bands Page.

Goulburn Blues Festival 2013 was held over a weekend in early February.  Its official name is the Australian Blues Music Festival.  I’m not Official Photographer for this Festival and we only attended during one day.  I photographed just three performances: Jan Preston, Jeff Lang and Jimi Hocking.

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Jan Preston

Jan Preston and Band

Jan Preston grew up in Greymouth on the wild West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.  She has a long and illustrious career including playing with Split Enz and writing music for films.  Known as Australia’s “Queen of the Boogie Piano”, she always gives a great live performance.

Web Site.  Music on MySpace.

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Jeff Lang

Jeff Lang

Jeff Lang was performing here solo, first time I had seen him without a band for several years.  He creates a musical space somewhere between Blues, Roots and Folk and is an absolute maestro on the guitar.

Web Site.  Music on My Space.

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Jimi Hocking

Jimi Hocking and Band

Jimi Hocking is always a dynamo in live performance, including a level of fitness that would impress Mick Jagger.  In the 90s he was lead guitarist for the Screaming Jets and before that, replacement guitarist for a while with the Angels.  His web site describes him as “the electric love child of T-Bone Walker, BB King and Jimi Hendrix”.  He is always a great favourite with the people on the dance floor.

Web site.  Music on MySpace.

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See here for more images from this Festival (62 in all including some monochrome conversions).

Here are some images from the inaugural Canberra Blues Society Jam at the new location at the Harmonie German Club.  There was a good roll-up, with 128 people attending.

Dan Fernandes

Black Hat Band plus horns

These are some of the local performers.  Canberra has a surprising range of excellent Blues musicians, including some of National and International stature.

Taking the photographs here was tricky, though.  It was daytime and there was a whole line of windows above the bands, pointing directly towards the sun.

Richard Steele

Anni Piper

Also for this event, the feature event was Anni Piper from Woollongong and her guitarist Richard Steele.

Website.  Music on MySpace.

Also, see here for more images from this performance and Jam.

Last night, on Friday 22nd February, we were fortunate enough to see Sugarcane Collins live in concert in one of our local venues (the Harmonie German Club).

Sugarcane (or Andy) Collins hails from the far North of Queensland, in some ways the Deep North of Australia as compared to the Deep South of the US (southern hemisphere, remember).

Some years ago he used to play with a full rhythm and blues band.  These days he mainly plays solo.  His music is original, his style is distinctive and he is deeply versed in the Blues music and culture of Mississippi and Louisiana.  I’m not sure that a comparison is warranted but perhaps Otis Taylor occasionally sounds a little bit similar.

His CDs don’t come all that often and they are worth waiting for.  The previous one, Way Down the River, revealed the experience of the American blacks as though he had been born a black in Mississippi.  His new CD, Downunder the Blues, focuses on concerns and experiences in Australia, including the Aborigines and the Environment.

It was a memorable performance, as you might well imagine.

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This is the cover of his new CD.  As it happens, it features one of my images, from Thredbo Blues Festival a few years ago.

Web site.

A few more images (another 4 for 8 in total).

Narooma Blues Festival 2013 took place over three days and nights on a weekend at the start of October.

Chris Cain

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Backsliders

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Continental Blues Party

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Howling Steam Train

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Ali Penney, Cyril B Bunter Band

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Sherman Holmes, Holmes Brothers

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Watermelon Slim, Watermelon Slim & Fiona Boyes

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Christian Tryhorn, Transvaal Diamond Syndicate

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Drummer, Kerrie Simpson’s Band

Kerrie Simpson

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Christina Crofts

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Mal Eastick and Milena Barrett

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Simon Holmes (?), Bass player, Pete Cornelius’ band

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Russell Morris

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Wolf Mail

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Popa Chubby and Sari Schorr

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Dumpstaphunk

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Ash Grunwald

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Crowd (for Ash Grunwald)

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There are many more images.  On the Narooma Blues Festival Page you will find links to images from the 2013 Festival, as well the previous festivals from 2006 .  Links for 2013 include top 100 images and one for each of 25 bands.

Alternatively, there is also a direct overall link to all Narooma 2013 images in JAlbum (with overview images and images by band organised by folder).

For other images of a particular band I may have taken since 2006, see the Musicians and Bands Page, which lists links alphabetically by band.

Bass player, Russell Morris Band

Sydney Blues Festival 2013 took place over three days and nights on a weekend at the end of October.

Dave Hole

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Mal Eastick

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Charlie A’Court

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Colleen Fricker

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Reg Mombassa, Dog Trumpet

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Bec Sandridge

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Jimmy Bee, Cyril B Bunter Band

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Ash Grunwald

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Chris Wilson

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Crowd, Wilson & Diesel

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Robert Susz, Continental Blues Party

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Sandi Thom

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Applauding Carus Thompson

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Dom Turner

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Ray Beadle

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Russell Morris

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Tim Chaison (Diesel)

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Diesel

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Diesel

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There are many more images.  On the Sydney Blues Festival Page you will find links to images from the 2013 Festival, as well the previous festivals from 2009 .  Links for 2013 include top 100 images and one for each of 25 bands.

Alternatively, there is also a direct overall link to all Sydney 2013 images in JAlbum (with overview images and images by band organised by folder).

For other images of a particular band I may have taken since 2006, see the Musicians and Bands Page, which lists links alphabetically by band.

Before I left for Scotland on my North Atlantic trip I entered four prints in the annual Interstate Competition of the Australian Photographic Society.  This is where people from camera clubs all over Australia compete on a State basis and the standard is very high.

I did very well with one of the prints.

Michael Hardy at Canberra Blues Society Xmas Party, 2011

And this is the one.  Last year I had won first place for monochrome print with it in the 2012 APSCON National Competition.  In the Interstate Competition, I was awarded Herbert Medal for best monochrome print and also best overall image.  Astonishingly, this has won me a 10-day photographic trip to New York with UDesign Photo Tours.

I had visited there two years ago with my partner but that was mainly a social trip and this is a photographic tour.  It doesn’t happen until next October and I haven’t done any planning so far but I’m expecting we’ll probably also spend a week in New Orleans.

I may make very few posts during the next six weeks or so.

One reason is that I’ve been spending a lot of time rebuilding my computer data storage.  First the backup of my travel images became corrupted so I tried to recreate it.  Then one of the backup drives failed.  Then one of my data drives failed.

My main data drive was a RAID 5 array with four 1TB drives.  This means that three of those drives were for storage, with “striping” or writing across drives for speed, and the remaining drive was for backup.  My backup system is a Drobo S, with five 3TB drives, functioning similarly to RAID 5.   I had a lot of spare space there so when the drive failed it just rebuilt to the remaining four drives but that made it unusably slow for backing up for several days in the meanwhile.

Then, when one of the drives in the RAID 5 data drive failed,  I managed to backup Antarctica, Japan and New York and just two TIFF files from the North Atlantic trip before it died completely.   This was good because I had no backup of the images I restored and for the travel files I didn’t manage to restore, I still had all the RAW files on the laptop.

I now have all backups restored.  I lost about 250 TIFF files from the North Atlantic trip where I worked in Photoshop CC, Vivesa, Silver Efex Pro, SNS HDR or AutoPano Pro.  Those I can always regenerate from the RAW files though.  However, it appears I failed to create a backup for Blues Festivals in 2011 and 2012 and I have lost all those images, about 7,000 in all.  The best 1,000 or so are published to the web on JAlbum (in reduced size) but losing the source files is unfortunate and there’s no redress.

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The original file for this image is now lost. This is Darren Jack at Thredbo Blues Festival 2012.

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The conventional wisdom is that you should have three copies of your data, including one in a remote location in case say your house burns down.  I thought I could get away with two because they were both in systems that can usually cope with drive failures.  I almost did get away with that but then the main problem was that I was missing a backup.

I have rebuilt the data drive with four new 2TB drives as a RAID 10 array.  This means that two of those drives store data while the other two are backups (mirroring the data).  The drives are also “striped”, writing between each other for speed.  That can cope with losing up to two drives, provided they are not both drives of a mirrored pair.

I have many spare internal drives and a “disk caddy” to access them.  So I will create a second set of backups on those drives.  Finally, I will backup selected images to the Cloud.  These will probably be those with three stars or more in Lightroom, only essential images to minimise expense.

It’s also important to have a backup of your computer’s image, i.e. your C Drive including all the hidden system files.  You can use that to restore all your functionality and programs if you get a virus or your C Drive crashes and even (with a higher version of Acronis) to a different disk that replaces your C Drive.  This didn’t come to play in this situation but has a couple of times in the past.  I have saved images from both Acronis and Windows.  There’s a link here that shows you how to do it on Windows 8 which also has the benefit that Windows will use this image if you elect to Refresh PC.  Otherwise refreshing the PC just wipes everything.

I lost ten days with all of that.  I had about ten posts prepared in advance but not any more.  I’ve started preparing posts on St Kilda where I took about 400 images and another 420 sailing around the islands.  This will take a while and there’s also a lot to say.  Then this coming weekend I’m off to cover the Thredbo Blues Festival and it will take me at least two weeks to process the images I take there.  After that I’m in India for most of February (more on that soon).  I may not get much opportunity to post from there.  There may be very few posts between now and early March.

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Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson

Thredbo Blues Festival 2014 took place over three days and nights on a weekend in the middle of January.

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Simon Kinny-Lewis (Simon Kinny-Lewis Band)

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Andrea Marr

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Jimi Hocking

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Mighty Reapers (Clayton Doley (obscured), Robert Susz, Vito Portelesi, Dave Brewer, Antero Ceschin (obscured))

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Foreday Riders (Shane Pacey, Al Britton (obscured), Ron King, Rosscoe Clark, Jeff king)

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Rick Price

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Audience, Rick Price

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Jeff Lang

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Wendy Matthews

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Dave Blight (Dave Blight and the Flyers)

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Harry Brus (playing with Kevin Borich)

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Kevin Borich (, Harry Brus, Lucius Borich)

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Crowd, Mighty Reapers

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Bob Malone

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Genevieve Chadwick

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Davo Fester (playing with P J O’Brien)

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Jessie Jungalwalla (playing with Jungal)

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Victoria Beard (playing with Jungal)

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Leisha Jungalwalla (playing with Jungal)

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Jesse Valach (Jesse Valach and Blues Mountain)

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Audience applauding, Jesse Valach and Blues Mountain

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Hal Tupaea (playing with Ray Beadle)

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Alison Penney (, Dave Blanken, Rosscoe Clark, Mike Rix)

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(Dave Blanken), Robert Susz, Alison Penney (Keller Jam)

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Mary Jane Guiney, (Robert Susz), Ray Beadle (Keller Jam)

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There are many more images.  On the Thredbo Blues Festival Page you will find links to images from Thredbo 2014 including top 100 images as well as links for the Keller Jam, crowds and each of the 22 bands.  On that page you will also find links to images from previous Thredbo Festivals from 2006.

Alternatively, there is also a direct overall link to all Thredbo 2014 images in JAlbum (with overview images and images by band organised by folder).

For other images of a particular band I may have taken since 2006, see the Musicians and Bands Page, which lists links alphabetically by band.

Briefly breaking from posting on India, here are some images from the National Folk Festival in Canberra in 2014.   It happens every year for several days over Easter.  I went to photograph Leah Flanagan but since I was there, I photographed several other performers as well.

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John Bennett

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Richard Perso

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Moochers Inc

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Moochers Inc

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Moochers Inc

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Gina Wiliams and Guy Gouse

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Valanga Khoza South African Jive

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Valanga Khoza South African Jive

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Valanga Khoza South African Jive

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Frank Yamma

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Leah Flanagan

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Leah Flanagan

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Leah Flanagan

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Leah Flanagan

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Leah Flanagan

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The Barons of Tang

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Trouble in the Kitchen

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For more images (65 in total), see a slide show on JAlbum….

23rd February 2014 (Day 15) Manvar, Rajasthan, India

After dinner there was to be music and dancing.   I was septical that we would see anything memorable but I was quite wrong.   These were skilled musicians proud to demonstrate their craft and a couple of young women dancing with great flair.

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Gail Page Band, Sydney Autumn mini-Festival, May 2014

Adam Pringle, Gail Page, Gail Page Band

On my way back from Sydney last weekend, I stopped off at a mini Sydney Blues Festival at Windsor to see Gail Page, the last act.

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Adam Pringle, Gail Page, Gail Page Band

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Gail Page, Gail Page Band

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Gail Page Band

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Gail Page Band

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Adam Pringle, Gail Page Band

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Adam Pringle, Gail Page, Gail Page Band

For more images from this gig, see this JAlbum slideshow.

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Leroy’s Layabouts, CD Launch at Petersham Bowling Club, 17 May 2014

Leroy’s Layabouts

Leroy’s Layabouts are a rhythm and blues band with their roots in 50s swing.  They were originally based in Balmain in Sydney, though some of the members now live elsewhere.

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Gary “Guitar” Dale

The band originally played from the mid 70s to the late 80s and the name was shortened to The Layabouts in 1977.  They reformed in 2011 and played at the Patonga one-day festival.  When it came to produce the new CD, they realised a British band had appropriated their name and so reverted to the original Leroy’s Layabouts.

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Dave Wray

Not so much here, where there was no dance floor,  but they are a great dance band sure to get an audience on its feet.

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Tony “T Bone” Flint

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Mick White

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Tony Brown

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Brian ‘Leroy Suave’ Wakefield

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Bruce Allen

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Bruce Allen

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Brian ‘Leroy Suave’ Wakefield

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Brian ‘Leroy Suave’ Wakefield

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Charlie McMahon

Later in the set they were joined by Charlie Mc Mahon, formerly of Gondwanaland.

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Charlie McMahon

Charlie is here playing a didgibone, a cross between a didgeridoo and a trombone.

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Leroy’s Layabouts

The lighting was very uneven so there are some burnt-out areas in the images, particularly for images of the whole band.  Normally I can avoid this, here I could only minimise it.

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Dave Wray and Bruce Allen

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Dave Wray, Dale Barlow, Bruce Allen

Dale Barlow also sat in for a while on sax, though not normally part of the band.

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Gary “Guitar” Dale

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Charlie McMahon

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Leroy’s Layabouts

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Dave Wray

Here is the promotional synopsis for the new album: Smokin’ :
“The album you’re holding in your hand is smokin’. Really smokin’. While bushfires singed the outskirts of the Big Smoke, the recording session got so hot the fire brigade had to be called or the whole joint would have gone up. Flames poured out of the bells of the saxophones, the rhythm section boiled over, sparks flew from the piano man’s fingers, the lead guitarist got blisters up to the elbow and the singer was jumping like a cat on a hot tin roof. Seriously, it’s rare to capture in a studio the full passion and spontaneity of a raging live gig but this was one of those magic moments. Hearing is believing.
And that’s not all. Along with nine freshly recorded songs, there are seven long-lost vintage Layabouts tracks from the vaults, unearthed and painstakingly restored – extraordinary tracks, never before released but well worth the trouble of getting them up to scratch. Overdubs have been added where the original recordings were incomplete, in some cases involving a current band member playing or singing along with himself of some decades ago – before the astonished recording engineer was even born! Time travel is possible, folks.”

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24th February 2014 (Day 16) Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India

By late afternoon we were in Jaisalmer.  After stopping at our hotel, we visited Gadisar Lake.  We are in the middle of the Thar Desert, less than 100 kilometres from Pakistan.  This is a man-made lake filled by rainwater that was originally the source of Jaisalmer’s water supply.

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These days the lake never dries up because it is fed by the Indira Ghandi Canal, which carries water some 650 kilometres from the Punjab.

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Boat rides are available but we didn’t go on one on this occasion.

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Nearby was a musician playing on a distinctive Rajasthani instrument.  I bought his CD.

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Near where the bus was parked was this small timber mill and firewood supplier.

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A view from the bus of what appear to be fairly poor families in front of their houses.

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We arrived at a vantage point where we could take photographs of Jaisalmer Fort at sunset.  There were also some interesting views of the city nearby, including this one featuring many stacked ceramic pots.

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A woman near where we were standing.

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Some people were playing volleyball on the street below.

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A view of a market area some distance away.

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Looking along a nearby street….

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These two young men asked me to take their photograph.

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And there was another musician playing distinctive music.

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The sunset was gathering towards the west.

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And here is Jaisalmer Fort at the peak of the sunset.

The fort was built in 1156 and Jaisalmer means “the hill fort of Jaisal” after the founder Maharawal Jaisal Singh.  On two occasions in the fourteenth century, sieges led to jauhar.  This meant that, at the point where all was clearly lost, all the soldiers launched out of the fort to die in battle while the women and children burned themselves on a huge pyre.

The first occasion was at the hand of the Delhi Sultan Ala-ud-din Khalji, the second involved the Persian Emperor Ferozshah.

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A lone figure on a roof at bottom right surveys the town and the fort after sunset.

Jaisalmer was one of the last areas in India to fall within the British Raj.

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