WAITING FOR .....INSPIRATION?!

Oh Dearie Me!!
What a start to 2011......trapped in the Queensland flood, a traumatic escape, devastation for my son, and we're all still trying to come to terms with the experience and the fall out.

Is it any wonder that I'm lacking inspiration right now?

Funny, but everyone says "oh, there'll be a great song out of this, won't there?" Yet that's the last thing I feel like doing.
Fortunately, I'd finished a couple of songs during December - when I took a much needed break after a very heavy 2010 - planning to be back in the studio for recording in January.   Well, with the studio dates set for late January, the floods put a stop to that too!  So those new songs will have to remain as live-performance-only for the time being.

I'm back in SE Queensland in late March for a short tour and a series of small gigs so if you're around the Brisbane area and want to come along to one or two, just let me know.   Here's a brief look at a couple of the newies that I'll be sharing - and eventually recording:

• Cover Your Load - purely for laughs....about getting caught short on a road trip - we've all done it!
• Day is Done - a ballsy blues with guts
• Wasting Time - a funky little number
• All Dressed Up - a quirky tale of love's revenge
• Granny Hell- yeh, I said I'd never record it but I will - shhhh, don't tell!

Hope to see you at a gig soon.

OH.....by the way....for those of you in the Newcastle area who have been wondering when I'm going to get around to delivering the Borderless project here - it's coming to the Royal Exchange Theatre in Bolton Street on Wednesday Night March 16 (that's St Pat's Eve - appropriate for a show about Irish female settlement in Australia, eh?)

Love the Skin you're in!

Now some of you may have guessed from the photo's on my various sites that I'm not exactly....well.....er....trim, taut, and terrific.....well actually I AM terrific .... but the trim 'n taut bit, well....err.....yes....it's true!  I'm not!

Guilty!

And if I listened to the media, I'd get real sad about that .... depressed .... morose ....self-conscious.....uhm, embarrassed.....hmmmn.   Well reader, if you've ever seen me in live performance, you'll know that none of those descriptions apply.  I'm larger than life - and loving it!

But I'm fed up to here [pointing to the top of my wee short head] with the bombardment of 'lose weight' messages .....get fit....fit in....fit the right shape, the right size, the right clothes, the right pigeonhole.  Well Bugger it - I won't!  I refuse to be shaped by popular tastes and stereotypes.


And I'm REAL ticked off with a society that tells our young people that they can't be loved, accepted, worthy, unless they fit that bloody pigeonhole!  Because that's nothing more than marketing hype to fuel a weight loss industry which is making millions ....currently $750million per annum in Australia....and a marketing machine that wants to sell squillions of beauty-based products.


Well you know what.....I like to know who somebody is under the skin ...and I'm surrounded and loved by beautiful people who love me for who I am ....and who I am has nothing to do with how I look.  In my mirror I'm beautiful.  [my mirror's not for sale by the way!]  I'm respected, admired, appreciated by people who matter [including me]....and that's ALL that matters.


so endeth the lesson.........


but the reason I've shared that with you is so that you'll know what's behind the song A Little Fresh Air 'n Exercise.   It's a send-up song.  Written during the time of my last relationship with a dear man who couldn't handle any more than 9 years with a wacky muso!  [and we are still friends]   He used to say "gawd, I love a woman with a big bum - y've got something to snuggle in to"


I think you'll enjoy the song .....and if you haven't heard it, it's now loaded up on my reverbnation site.  You can have a listen.  And you can buy the track if you like it.  Even make it your ring tone!


http://www.reverbnation.com/mymaureenobrien


Oh, and its on the Many Shades of Blue Album - which won the national Trad&Now magazine award for best CD in Blues and Roots.  You can order that direct and we'll post it out.


Enjoy the listen ....and love yourself.

The Heart and Soul of a Community

I read a great article recently about how valuable Community Musicians are - that they go beyond simply making their music, to bring inspiration and encouragement into the community in which they are active. Music is a universal language that can overcome so many barriers. Did you know it can also make a significant contribution to the general mental and emotional health of a community?

In a world where we are increasingly isolated within our own micro environment, where we are slaves to our home media, where it takes a mammoth effort sometimes to get us out and mixing with the rest of the world, where extended family is no longer involved in our lives, where our immediate family is so busy there is little time for connection.....we are gradually losing our sense of community. In times gone past when people were in need, in trouble, or just needed to feel as if they belonged - somewhere, the local community stepped in to support individuals. Nowadays, most people wouldn't know their next door neighbor if they bumped into them in the local supermarket!

So when community musicians and artists are able to reach out and share their music, recognise that they are doing a most valuable job. In the corporate world, artists and musicians are often dismissed as of little to no value - after all, there aren't too many who loll about on their yachts or arrive at their gig in a mercedes! In fact, they are doing a far more important job than the global wheeler dealers - they're actually paying attention, and caring for, the individuals in their community....warming them with their music and art, speaking to them on an individual level through their music, their art, touching the inner person through their music, their art.

And at the end of the day.....our world is made up of individuals, all connected in the common bond of HUMANity.......and nothing connects us better than music.

Just think about it....

what a year!

Gosh readers,
I can't begin to tell you what an extraordinary year its been musically!

From directing 2 festivals and an annual community concert.....3 tours.....writing/directing/producing my first musical.....organising local music initiatives.....supporting various fundraisers ...writing new songs.....and various commercial gigs locally.....forming a new comedy duo and writing material for it ......no wonder I'm feeling exhausted!

There's been a couple of low points but mostly some great memories made this year. I've just come back from the Folk in Broke Music Festival and am, once again, blown away by the enormous wealth of talent this country has .....largely undiscovered. And its so sad that so many of our creative souls have to go overseas to get the recognition that they so richly deserve.

My last initiative is this coming Saturday night - its Comedy Night at the RX Theatre in Newcastle - and then I'll be ready to kick back and catch up on all the social that I've missed out on this year. [can't fit it all in, can you? or can you??]

I hope you've managed to get out there and support some live music/performance a few times this year - remember that if it's not supported it will not survive...and what sort of a legacy is THAT to leave the next generation?