The Byron Shire Echo – Issue 33.48 – May 8, 2019

Page 38

M A N D Y N O LA N ’S

SOAPBOX

W W W . E C H O . N E T. A U /

S O A P - B OX

LIVE MUSIC BELLO WINTER MUSIC YOUTH MENTORSHIPS

WHAT MOTHERS WANT I don’t want slippers. I don’t want flowers. I don’t want a shitty card with a dumb poem written by some weirdo at Hallmark. I want you to see what I do. I am happy to share it with you too. I want you to wipe the bench. I want you to put your stuff away. I want you to take out the bins. When the bin is full I want you to change the bag. And if the bin is filthy and covered in weird unidentified rubbish goo then I want you to wash it out. I want you to see that it’s 5pm and the washing is on the line and it’s going to get damp and it’s been there for four days already and it needs to come in. It does not magically appear in your wardrobe. A woman you know well put it there. I want you to stand for five hours and do my ironing – which is actually your ironing and everyone else’s but somehow mysteriously ‘mine’. I want you know how to iron something other than your hair. I want you to know where the vacuum cleaner is and how to turn it on and that when it stops working it’s not because it’s broken, it’s because the bag is full and needs replacing. I want you to replace the bag. I want you to notice that we’re out of toilet paper before we run out of toilet paper. I want you to decide to put the paper on the roll and then… wait for it… put the empty in the bin. I want you to pick up your wet towel. I want you to feed the dog without saying ‘I’ll do it in a minute’ and then half an hour later ‘I’ll do it in a minute’ until I give up and feed the dog or the dog gives up and leaves home. I want you to take the plates and cups from beside your bed and put them in the sink. I want you to take the stuff in the sink and put it in the dishwasher. Then I want you to put the dishwasher on and then come back an hour later and unpack it. I want you to change your sheets. I want you to make your bed look pretty like I do. I want you to pick up your undies – but not just your undies – other people’s that you find discarded on the bathroom floor. I want you to think about dinner at breakfast and how to make a meal for a vego, a vegan, a meat eater, and a gluten intolerant. These are the days of my life. This maternal indenture is what I do every day before I do everything else. It’s the reason I am angry for ‘NO apparent reason’. It’s why I want EVERYONE to notice how much I do and how GREAT everything looks when I’ve done it. I want you to see this boring mindless and endless array of things that I do every day and realise that I actually don’t want to do it either. It’s the unseen unvalued unpaid work of women. It’s boring. It’s work that diminishes you. Not straightaway. It can take years of putting shit away before you find yourself standing in your undies and t-shirt at 5.30am while everyone sleeps, thinking ‘what the F am I doing? Is this my life?’ Why isn’t this on Instagram….#perfectlife? Then when everything is put away, when benches are clear, when clothes are cleaned, when bins are empty, you sit for a moment and have a cup of tea knowing that this is the moment when it’s all perfect, and that soon it will be undone. Which is fine. Because life is entropy – a constant move to disorder – it would just be nice to have a few other dickheads helping push our universe back to order. Instead of trending mindfulness, how sharing the daily mindlessness? I guess its why they call childbirth ‘labour’. It’s a warning. Not about the piercing 12 hours of 10cm cervix dilation. In comparison, that’s easy. Pushing a head out my twat was nuthin’. I’m talking about the following twenty-plus years of service dilation – where I continue to expand my capacity for meaningless output for decreasing appreciation. That is labour. Where the brightest, most ambitious, most creative, most amazing of us are found on a sunny Sunday on all fours scrubbing dog shit from a carpet. ‘She could have been anything she wanted,’ the crowd whispers, ‘but look how good she is at shit removal!’ If you do nothing else, please, NOTICE what we do! And praise our enduring selflessness. You’re crazy not to, because with a little bit of acknowledgement we’ll keep at it for another decade. Of course we’ll keep whingeing. Remember, there’s no point suffering if no-one sees. Happy martyrs day!

38 The Byron Shire Echo lëƷ ǯǽ ǩǧǨǰ

Applications are now open for the 2019 Bello Winter Music Youth Mentorship Program where aspiring musicians under 19 years of age get the chance to be mentored by established artists on the festival bill. The selected young artists from each category (Band, Singer Songwriter, Vocal, Under 15 years) receive a rehearsal session with their mentor, a 20-minute performance at the festival with their mentor backstage, the opportunity to watch their mentor perform from backstage, and a weekend pass to the festival. This year’s mentors are Hat Fitz & Cara (Band category); Joe Newton (Singer/songwriter category); Claire Anne Taylor (Vocal category); and The Maes (Under 15 Years category). Apply at www.bellowintermusic.com. Applications close 14 June 2019.

ALLENSWORTH! California soul collective Allensworth drop new album and hit the east coast. Hailing from southern California, Jamie Allensworth and his eponymous musical collective fuse rock and soul with true-life anthemic songwriting. His playbook dives deeply into the soul tradition of James Brown, Otis Redding, and Curtis Mayfield, and updates that tradition along the lines of Alabama Shakes and Michael Kiwanuka, with an added psychedelic twist. No stranger to these shores, Allensworth is making the journey to Australia this May to launch the ingeniously titled album Albumsworth with shows and festivals up and down the east coast. The tour features his longstanding Australian band, which includes members of Hussy Hicks, Cheap Fakes, and Band of Frequencies to name a few. Saturday 18 May at the Byron Brewery at 7pm. Free.

SCU GIVING A SONGWRITERS WORKSHOP Sara Storer is a multi-award-winning (2016 ARIA award and 21 Golden Guitar awards) Australia singer, songwriter, and performer recently signed with Universal Music to release her seventh studio album, Raindance. Six studio albums have reached the top 30 on the ARIA Albums Chart, Firefly (July 2005), Lovegrass (August 2013), and Silos (March 2016). Silos also won Best Country Album at the ARIA Music Awards of 2016. She has had songwriting collaborations with Josh Cunningham The Waifs – Important Things and Paul Kelly – Must’ve Been a Hell of a Party.

MOTHERS DAY TREE PLANTING Do something for everyone’s mother on Mothers Day and plant some bloody trees! As part of their carbon-offset event the Mullum Music Festival have an annual tree planting; this is their 9th one! So while you plant trees at 141 Dingo Lane with Brunswick Valley Landcare you get to enjoy the music of Bethany Jolly, Blind Mouth, Loose Content, and Dustyesky. This year sees another 1,000-plus trees go into the ground! Bring water, wear gloves, long sleeves, and long pants and protective shoes. This is an all-weather event. 9am–1pm on Sunday at the Teak Tree Farm at 141 Dingo Lane, Myocum.

Raindance features the contributions by Sara’s longtime collaborator and producer Matt Fell with Shane Nicholson engineering the drums and guitar tracks. She is at SCU giving a songwriters workshop from 10am till 12 noon on Thursday – open to all SCU students.

Don’t miss it! Selling fast!

VINCE DOES VAN Australian jazz legend Vince Jones and the Astral Orchestra perform songs from Van Morrison’s classic albums Astral Weeks and Moondance. Vince Jones has set the benchmark for Australian jazz vocalist/musicians across his 20 albums, international career, and his Celtic/jazz/blues influences provide the perfect blend for his reading of two of contemporary rock music’s greatest works.In April this year Vince Jones released his18th album, A Personal Selection, a collection of his favourite songs recorded over his 40-year career. The Van Morrison Masterpieces concert brings together Vince Jones (vocal, trumpet) with the eight-piece Astral Orchestra comprising acclaimed Australian instrumentalists Matt McMahon (piano & musical director), Ben Hauptman (guitar), Ben Robertson (double & electric bass), James Hauptman (drums), Paul Cutlan (saxophone & flute), Phil Slater (trumpet), Eugenie Costello (violin), and Stephanie Zarka (violin). Friday at Lismore City Hall at 7.30pm. Tix $69–74 at lismorecityhall.com.au

Tickets at byroncentre.com.au

North Coast news daily in Echonetdaily www.echo.net.au


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