2000 - THE MAIN POINTS

OCT 2000 US TOUR

 

To celebrate the release of Communication at an unknown rate CD we returned to the US, in October of 2000 for an East Coast tour with Guy Blackman on bass and Stewart Anderson on drums + numerous guests including Chris Coyle from Empress and Mary Wyer from Even As we Speak
We didn't keep a tour diary for some strange reason ( seems everyone assumed someone else was doing it! ) so we'll have to collectively rack our brains and try and remember some stuff and slot it in here some time in the future.
We do however have an archived live to air we did for New Jersey station WFMU during the 2000 tour. You can listen to it online if you have RealPlayer or something of the sort. Many thanks to Douglas Wolk for arranging the session and archiving it. To listen click Rhubarb cake

2001 - THE YEAR IN REVIEW

CANNANES.COM: THE BEGINNING
2001 began with perhaps our hugest project since we published our book, we finally set up cannanes.com which is now the "official" Cannanes website, bringing together our old darnet site run by our dear friend Jerome Gaynor of St Louis for a good long while, & our homepage.com site set up in 2000 as a testing ground for our website skills. It should also be mentioned here (if it hasn't elsewhere) that the first Cannanes website was set up and maintained by Neil Johnson on a very early Australian band specific site called Wood & Wire many years ago.

Stew & Fran hard at work on the new album March 2001

The new site was cleverly designed by our own Andy Coffey, is maintained by Cannanes past and present (and you too!). We should also thank here David Major from Melbourne who provided a home for our site throughout 2001 + helped us get it up and running by ourselves in 2002.

In May we recorded live in our kitchen for a "Live to air" which was broadcast on the Osmosis programme on 2SER (107.3 FM) here in Sydney.
Meanwhile back in Sydney mastering was completed for the Crank it up! Live in Frisco CDEP as well as The Cannanes with Explosion Robinson and Steward! Felicity EP, work also continued on the new album (working title - Nobody Loves an Albatross).

MARCO POLO

Frances in Tian'anmen

In May Frances had the honour to visit China and experienced rather extraordinary hospitality...

JULY
WE RETURNED TO THE US TO PLAY YO YO AND THE SAN FRANCISCO POP FANTASY AND DECIDED TO ADD A FEW EXTRA SHOWS TO JUSTIFY THE DISTANCE! SHOWS TOOK IN: OLYMPIA, SEATTLE, SAN FRANCISCO AND PORTLAND AS WELL AS A COUPLE OF LIVE TO AIRS IN SAN FRANCISCO - HOPEFULLY WE WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE A MORE DETAILED ACCOUNT IN THE NEAR FUTURE

Some highlights were hanging out with mates old and new everywhere; our live to air for Mitch Lemay on KFJC in Los Altos, (he also interviewed us for a 5 hour! Cannanes special which went to air on New Years Eve ie. Dec 31st); attending a bonfire at Ocean beach SF; attending most of the YoYo festival; getting close to glaciers at Mt Rainier; discovering Long Island iced teas in San Francisco and weird peach concoctions in Portland; a musical feast in Walnut Creek; sighting the Seattle Troll; a skunk, marmots and chipmunks, and, as always getting home to our beds (a huge thanks to everyone who offered us theirs on our travels)

Also on our return we were delighted to receive a package from one M. S. of Melbourne which included 10 cassette tapes of 18! of our Melbourne performances, which must be most if not all of them, guess this means the live album is even more likely to eventuate some time. Thanks M.S. you have certainly earned a place in our Roll of Honour

SEPTEMBER
Some time around September we were approached to take part in the filming of a Rockumentary on The Cannanes, that's right documentary! and it's looking to be a pretty comprehensive one as well - basically it's in the post production stage and expected completion date is some time in 2004
We won't give too much away here about what to expect but naturally we'll keep you posted. In the meantime anyone who is interested in participating eg. with reminiscences, photographs, or any live footage ( and we know there is a fair bit of it out there! ) you can still contact us or better still the producers Neil, Thomas & Molly

We all watched with horror the devastation in New York and Washington and Afghanistan. All we could hope was that there be no further killings. thanks to J Neo Marvin for the following thoughts; "They love explosions 'cause they never get burned." X-tal, "Happy Americans" Dear friends, Back around 1985, at the height of the Reagan years and as the Hollywood action movie began to reach new heights of pyrotechnical fabulousness, I wrote the song quoted above. At the time, I meant to make a point about how easy it is for Americans to talk casually about bombing one country or another because for generations we have been fortunate enough to have been almost completely spared from the reality of war within our own borders. Now that we are still reeling from yesterday's events, I hope that one thing we take away from this awful experience is the inability to ever again see an explosion anywhere without wondering who was in it, what their lives were like, and who they left behind. If the anonymous delusional fascists who committed these crimes accomplished anything besides damaging the Bill of Rights and the Palestinian cause beyond recognition, I hope they have given us a vivid reminder that war is something more than cool special effects and flashing blips on a video screen. Also Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez's son Greg is one of the Trade Center victims. > Copy of letter sent to NY Times:> > Not in Our Son's Name> > Our son Greg is among the many missing from the World Trade Center attack. Since we first heard the news, we have shared moments of grief, comfort, hope, despair, fond memories with his wife, the two families, our friends and neighbors, his loving colleagues at Cantor Fitzgerald / Espeed, and all the grieving families that daily meet at the Pierre Hotel. We see our hurt and anger reflected among everybody we meet. We cannot pay attention to the daily flow of news about this disaster. But we read enough of the news to sense that our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. It is not the way to go. It will not avenge our son's death. Not in our son's name. Our son died a victim of an inhuman ideology. Our actions should not serve the same purpose. Let us grieve. Let us reflect and pray. Let us think about a rational response that brings real peace and justice to our world. But let us not as a nation add to the inhumanity of our times.

OCTOBER

Our October 5 show at the Vic on the park turned out to be lots of fun but not without it's hitches..........We were waiting for Andy to arrive so we could head down the venue when we got word he (and Kirsty!) were the victims of a hit and run! Turns out they were hit by a car (with a personalized number plate we're not sure we can divulge right here) as they were half way across a pedestrian crossing! The good news is they were both ok once the bruises subsided.
After Andy gave us the green light to go ahead with the gig we realized we needed a drummer or it was going to be a bit to "unplugged" for our liking. Luckily Bon from El Mopa was willing and able to help us out; we didn't realize it on the night but Bon would be 'helping us out' for some time to come! Later that night: thanks to a rowdy and supportive crowd, a generous rider, and fine entertainment provided all by Founder & Box Freezer Romance who we hadn't heard before, the evening that had started out unexpectedly stressful turned out to be a corker

On October 20th our Stew tied the knot with our Jen and from what we hear it was a pretty wild and enjoyable affair. For their honeymoon they headed down to Australia where they of course did much gigging as well as well as releasing a truckload of records, check out the wedding song on our mp3s page if it's still there

Stewart Anderson & Jen Turrell pre - nuptials

NOVEMBER
We participated in the filming of a video clip for the song "You Name It" to coincide with the release of the album Trouble seemed so far away, you can now see the finished clip on our videography page

Chapter 10.6 The Cannanes

Our old mate Bob Blunt had his eagerly awaited book released by Melbourne publishers Prowling Tiger Press - we congratulate Bob on this huge tome a bit of a must for anyone who was into the Sydney or Melbourne scenes from the early 80's to early 90's in particular. The book includes many interviews and recollections as well as tons of very fine and funny photographs & flyers. And for us best of all for us we get our own chapter! 10.6

To help Bob with his ongoing celebration of the book being so well received we performed at a launch at the Vic on the Park Hotel in Enmore on 28th DECEMBER 2001. It was our last show for the year and Stew managed to join us on-stage direct from the UK after arriving in the country about 2 hours earlier! It was also a farewell to Bob who was heading off to live in distant Melbourne

2002 - THE YEAR IN BRIEF

In FEBRUARY the legendary LOW asked that we support them for a couple of dates on their Australian tour. We wholeheartedly thanks them for that. We were somewhat daunted + a little excited to be playing such salubrious venues but had great nights in both Melbourne and Sydney. Low really are masters of their genre and along with their sound engineer Chris swell to hang out with.

MARCH was hectic but enjoyable - we managed to play Melbourne + twice in Sydney + make a start on a new album with Explosion (our NY member/writer/producer/genius) who joined us on our jaunts for a couple weeks + squeezed in some much needed holls at both the South and North coasts of New South Wales. We played Vic on the Park here in Sydney, it was, as always a hoot (and extremely well attended) thanks to Box Freezer Romance for asking us + our other Stateside visitor Neil Michka for helping us achieve that Blue Oyster Cult guitar lineup !
Also in March we had our Sydney launch for the Felicity CD which was getting some decent airplay on Melbourne radio station 3RRR as well as here in Sydney on 2SER

Special guests on the night were the very smooth Sounds Like Sunset and the rarely seen A Goldstar Secret. We had the room looking beautiful thanks to Wadey who helped out on slides and lights, thanks also to Greg Wadley for flying up from Melb to pull a great mix and add keyboards from the comfort of the mixing desk. Thanks also to Katherine for shakering and congrats to the winners of the always popular "what is the worst Beatles song" quiz.
The Melbourne launch the Friday before was a lot of fun, we had a roisterous time on stage and as always nice to be at everyone's favorite Melbourne venue The Empress - tanks to Tugboat and Boyracer for limbering up the audience for us

APRIL - SEPTEMBER

Trouble seemed so far away was released in the U.S. on Tuesday the 21st of May by which time the first pressing had already SOLD OUT in advance orders

Fran and Stephen visit China and Melbourne, accidents, illness, shows + more accidents

OCTOBER
In Sydney work continued on finishing off some songs for various compilation releases and the next album + preparing to launch our own Lamingtone record label!- we heard the chickfactor compilation was released in the States (our contribution being an alternate version of Astra), we travel to Katoomba to play the wonderful old Gearin Hotel for the launch of Trouble on Lamingtone, much fun + dancing was had by all and we got a taste of what it's like to play two long sets again (a taste to play three long sets! )

NOVEMBER
At the end of November National radio network 'triple J' placed You Name It from the new album on high rotation! + add it to their net 50 where it remained till at least 17th Feb 2003 ! - we travel to Melbourne to launch the Trouble album with double-special guests, the recently re-formed Small World Experience and the twin sitar onslaught of The Hi God people
Trouble was featured! on the Radio National - Night Club programme - bizarrely sharing the spotlight with Meatloafs' Bat Out of Hell album

DECEMBER
Sydney album launch at Hotel Hollywood was packed to the rafters and very fun - mid Dec we managed to make it down to Wollongong for the first time in a while and played to by far our largest turnout there
About this time Trouble was added to the triple Js album of the year list !
Fran (who from July till December relocated to Melbourne - place of her birth) threw herself back into all the "Riviera of the south" had to offer - and supplied as promised a short series of Melbourne scene reports which have now been archived on the Fran vanity page our song You Name It remained on high rotation on National Radio station triple J

2003

JAPANESE TOUR SEPTEMBER 2003 !
In September we returned to Japan for a string of shows in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kyoto and had a very fine time doing it. Many photos + some video and extensive diaries were kept ~ so extensive we had to start a new page and call it history Part 8!