Shoestring Records at The Basement in July, Pat inducted into the Hands Of Fame, Bush Laureate Awards for Naked Poets and more.....

G'day Folks. Well, the year began in fine style with a couple of major awards at The Tamworth Festival.

It happened in one of three ways....

Version 1. The Northern Daily Leader version....
"Six new famous country music names were immortalised in concrete in Country Music Capital's Hands of Fame in Tamworth at the 2003 Awards
The 2003 Hands of Fame names were announced by the Australian Country Music Foundation at the Roll of Renown Concert . They included... Pat Drummond and long time touring partner and friend, Andrew Clermont, Andrew Clermont is one of Australia's best-known country instrumentalists. A multi Golden Guitar finalist, he has travelled all over Australia and the world playing his music and has released a number of albums. Pat Drummond was cited as " a songwriter whose songs about real people capture the Australian spirit and who has had much success as an entertainer and recording artist over the years including being named Independent Artist of the Year at the 2000 Australian Independent Country Music Awards." In a reference to Pat's label, 'Shoestring Records' and his work on the board of Country Music Association of Australia, Presenter Jim Brown also stated that Pat "had done more than any other artist to heal the divisions between Independents and Signed artists in Australian Country Music."

Version 2. Karen's account "Pat was inducted into the hands of fame in Kable park this year. In a cunningly contrived plot to get his fingerprints ASIO counted on Pat's intolerable ego to supply them with a full set of hand prints set in concrete, which they now have....serves him right"

Version 3. which seems equally (possibly even more so) from Gary, a fan from the Hunter Valley whose contribution to the Website went.....

"This "Hands of Renown" thing, mate... c'mon admit it ... you were crawling home from another late night gig and just happened to wander into the wet cement
area didn't you ... mmmmmmmm???
I can just picture the morning after, officials standing around your prostrate form nodding their collective heads and muttering "Who is this ungainly person?" then someone recognised you as being a board member and they all probably just decided it was easier to pencil in your name rather than recast the cement. (That's gotta be right up there with professing to be the "Karate Kid" on Toowoon Bay Beach New Year's morning) what an interesting and profound last month or so you've had."

The other major award came when Naked Poets 3 won "Album Of The Year" at The 2003 Bush Laureate Awards completing the hatrick for these amazingly successful albums. A capacity audience in Tamworth's famous Town Hall witnessed the seventh annual presentation of the Awards .

As The Northern Daily Leader reported

"In a moving tribute to the late Bobby Miller, the group's producer and singer/songwriter Pat Drummond, flanked by his fellow Naked Poets and Sandy Miller, told the capacity audience

"Country music is rich in tales of families who become acts and go on to become successful businesses. No less wonderful, however, are those acts that start as businesses and go on to become families. This was very much the case with Naked Poets. There is no doubt that our family has suffered a massive loss this year with the passing of Poetry Legend, Bobby Miller. But Bobby will never be entirely lost to us. He lives on in the albums we recorded together; he lives on in the poems and songs that he left us; poems that are constantly recited by fledgling Bush Poets around the nation. He lives on in the Spirit of the Bush Poetry fraternity and he will live on in the people you see standing beside me on this stage tonight. This One's for you, Bob." The poets presented the Award to Sandy Miller, Bobby's wife.

Big Events Department.

Shoestring, has in wake of the overwhelming success of the Naked Poets now expanded it's stable to include 14 other artists. If you are a fan of acoustic country/folk, you will love the other artists in the singer songwriter string.

IN JULY, the Shoestring Records Writers' Showcases featuring Allan Caswell, Pat Drummond, Brent Parlane, K'crasher, Mark Tempany and Karen Lynne.
We would ask that you make a special effort to support these gigs and help us welcome our writers to
Sydney. The events will happen over 2 nights. Firstly, in the Blue Mountains on Fri, 11 Jul 2003
at The Clarendon Guest House Theatre (where I recorded 'Through The Cracks in 2000).

And on Mon, 14 Jul 2003 we are very excited to announce that we all will be appearing at Sydney's legendary music venue, The Basement, Reiby Place, Circular Quay our first ever appearance at the Basement. Tickets will be $15.00 and bookings can be made through us on 02 4784 1950 and through the Basement direct.

Also note that The Blarney room gigs at The Crown Hotel, Revesby have been changed to Saturdays from now on starting with Sat, 28 Jun 2003. Once again we urge your support for these gigs.

Also please note that the Christmas Cruise has been booked, this year for Sat, 20 Dec 2003 at 11am

Welcome to the future Dept.

In a landmark event in Japanese pop culture,
on April 7, Japan celebrated Astro Boy's birthday.

When Astro Boy (or The Mighty Atom as he is known in Japan) was created by the legendary Osamu Tezuka back in the 1950s, he was placed in the distant future that would be home to boy robots. And so it was that he was created on April 7, 2003....which means we have all lived long enough to see his birthday.

As the Sydney Morning Herald reported, "Even Triumph Japan, the maker of intimate apparel, has joined in. As part of its program of one-off theme items, it has produced the Astro Boy bra, with the cups in the shape of Astro Boy's head. For what it is worth, he faces away from the wearer,
and unfortunately, his facial features have been omitted. This may have been the moment Astro Boy became Astro Man, but we will never know.

What is it about the little boy robot that has middle-aged men on a Tokyo railway stations waxing sentimental?

First, there is his story. There have been changes over the years, but basically, it begins when the son of an industrialist is killed in a car accident. His father is determined to bring him back to life, and creates the boy robot. Depending on the version, Astro Boy is either separated from or rejected by his father.
He is adopted by a professor, who refits him with special powers, and his life of fighting for the forces of goodness began. Pint-sized with big eyes and round face, he packs a punch. He had rocket-powered legs and shoots bullets from his hips.

In Japan, Astro Boy is a role model. Thirteen years of economic decline and political scandal have robbed the Japanese of self-confidence, and there is a desperate urge to find local heroes. A boy robot with rocket-powered boots remains the perfect idol."

The really bizarre thing is that my early career was heavily associated with Astroboy. He featured on all
our posters and T-shirts throughout the 70's and 80's. (The original recording of the Astroboy theme is available at the Website, under Soundbytes); so imagine my shock to find out that his birthday was, in fact, the same day as Karen Lynne's Birthday!?!?

Is there some Kind of Cosmic significance in that? ... Is Karen Astroboy in Drag... Investigations are continuing...!

Speaking of Karen, a big Congratulations is due.
"This Man I Love" from her great new solo new album "Second Wind" has hit #4 with a bullet on the national Country Music charts.

You can catch up with her news on her Website at www.karenlynne.com and with our latest developments at www.patdrummond.net on the internet.

Keepers of The Flame Dept.

Keepers of The Flame which was oiginally conceived for ABC Radio National continues these days as an online narrowcast and as a substantial regular feature in the national glossy A4 Folk Magazine, "Trad & Now" in which I've interviewed a number of politically active singer/songwriters.

"Trad and Now" is a great development in the Australian Folk Scene and I thoroughly recommend you consider a subscription. There are articles on the history and developments of Aussie Folk, transcribed songs with chords and tunes as well as a myriad of fascinating artist profiles. Contact Dave De Santi on 02 4257 1788.

You can also listen online to Keepers of The Flame
and there are some great transcriptions of new interviews with Judy Small, Don McLean, Hugh McDonald (ex- Redgum), Brent Parlane and soon, Folk legend, Gary Shearston at the site www.keepersoftheflame.net

Home and Hearth Dept.

First a follow up to our reports on the health of my brother, Ron. He had a bone marrow transplant at the beginning of May (Danny, Brother 2, drew the short straw and turned out to be the match. The rest of us feel a little guilty, but are very grateful to Danny at this time).

Interestingly enough, it was the sheer state of advancement of the cancer (which was extremely aggressive and malign) which may have saved Ron's life because the 'nuking' procedure that he under went actually targets particularly fast growing cells.

It's the reason, it seems, that it doesn't work all that well on children, since all of their cells are in equally rapid growth. But for Ron it meant that the cancer
was very effectively targeted and he is at least for the moment in remission.

Of course the the procedure completely destroyed his immune system (As Moliere said 'nearly all men die of their medicines not their diseases') and he desperately needed the transplant.

We are all thrilled with the success of the procedures to date and Ron is very positive (most of the time)
even if he is of course very concerned about his young children and what they are making of all this.
Thanks for the concern and encouragement that so many ex Rest Hoteliers have expressed

On Fri, 9 May 2003, Carol was awarded the NSW TAFE State Medal for her academic record in the Associate Diploma of Social Science. This is a course she completed by correspondence over 9 years enabling her to ascend to the role of Temporary Authorised Supervisor of Lawson Preschool from the position of the office clerk during that time. Her academic record of distinctions was broken by just one annoying credit (for an

She did all this while raising our children and grandchildren, running Shoestring Records for 14 recording artists and doing the tax, the books and chasing the invoices for my business. Add to that thirty years of cooking, cleaning and ironing for three generations of people and you can see she needs to get involved more. As the state's premier student in the NSW TAFE Associate Diploma in Social Science, she received the award at a ritzy ceremony at The Carlton Hotel in Parramatta. Cheers of "Goodonya Mum" went up from a certain very rowdy section of the audience.

If I had booked a gig I would probably have been kneecapped.

Postscript from Carol. When I finally got to meet
some of the teachers from OTEN, of course, yes you guessed it! They knew Pat because they had seen him play at where? "The Rest Hotel"!!!!!!!!

All The Best

Pat and Carol Drummond