G'day Folks,

After eight weeks of almost constant touring, it is a great delight to be home.

After being locked up in the studio compiling and splicing the new Naked Poets release, Naked Poets 2 (newdirections ) for most of July, I was more than pleased to be facing the prospect of escaping and hitting the road once more.

Early August took Karen Lynne and I to Bingara for the Children's Orange Festival. The streets of Bingara are lined with orange trees, planted as a memorial to the soldiers from the district who died in the two Great Wars. Rather than let the fruit that these trees bear spoil, the town developed a tradition of having the children gather it on a particular day each year; bringing it as gifts to the senior citizens of the town to remind them that each new generation still remembers and appreciates the sacrifices their generation made.

It is a lovely living tradition and the fruit as it develops on the trees each year is carefully guarded and watched by the expectant children. One of the loveliest Peace images that I have ever seen was the sight of an armoured gun carrier hung with garlands and converted into a children's float to transport some of the kids in the parade. To see those smiling faces waving from the turret held such echoes of hope. Talk about 'swords into ploughshears'....'

The middle of August took me North again for the Gympie Muster where, for the first time in living memory, it didn't rain. The numbers were up
about 30% this year and for me personally it was the best northern festival I have ever done.

Andrew Clermont and I linked up for two concerts during the festival which resulted in large numbers of album sales in what seemed to be a whole new market. The huge HMV tent sold out it's Shoestring stock twice and we also saw strong interests at the shows.

The truck unfortunately got a whole new front end make over after a close encounter of the kangaroo type just outside Millmerran which saw me sidelined from a number of gigs in Brisbane including the Kedron Wavel Club. The roo survived better than we did. My apologies to all those who attended. I hope that I will catch up with you all in March 2001 when I tour again in Queensland; both solo and with the Naked Poets.

I returned to Sydney via the Central Coast for the annual Galston Country Music Festival which was enormously successful again this year. As Entertainment Coordinator for the festival I was ecstatic to find that 20,000 people had attended, making Galston the biggest country music festival
in Sydney. We are still a long way behind Gympie, Tamworth and Mildura but the future looks very bright indeed. Our congratulations to my fellow directors Tony and Vicki Page and Len Knight for their amazing efforts. With the northern tour, I
was away again for the entire run up to the festival so that much of the load fell on The Pages, particularly Vikki, who did the lion's share of the work. A fabulous result from a job well done.

Back in Sydney, a performance at the Olympic Torch Relay in Pennant Hills brought an opportunity to witness Sydneysiders enthusiasm for that particular event. Pretty Amazing!

Speaking of Sydney the Country Music Association of Australia has opened a Sydney office and much of it's day to day business will now be conducted from there. It has been a hectic year politically since I was elected to the board in January, but I feel the CMAA has engaged productively with the independents Agenda since then. The establishment of two New Industry Achiever Awards for the Independents as well as guaranteed spots for Independent performers on the Industry Achiever Awards Function have been satisfying developments. The formation of the Independents Subcommittee to deal with items of concern for independents and an end to the recording of members numbers on their voting slips; a practice that many members found intimidating, has ensured the integrity of the Board ballot. Changes to judging criteria in certain CMAA awards categories have also been welcomed.

With barely twelve days at home; just time to say "Hello" to the family and do the washing; and it was time to hit the road again; this time with Karen Lynne.

It was a tour that was to include some truly wonderful moments. Heading west for a brief stopover in Orange and Hay for some gigs and some negotiations with the Hay Tourist Association which saw me appointed as the entertainment coordinator for the Hay Bush Week in March, it was on to Mildura where we found the Independent Country Music Festival, now the third biggest in the country, in full swing. As with Gympie, Mildura enjoyed a big surge in attendances this year.

And what a festival it was to be! Karen and I had been invited to perform on the national broadcast of the awards night, an honor in itself. Karen was in final five contention for Rising Female Star, for the second year in a row for a track called "The Days When We Were Young " from our duet album "Six Days In December". We were both disappointed that she did not pick up the Award but were elated that our great friend Elizabeth Lord did. Her winning track "Ryliegh's Last Run", about the last day of a train driver's working life, is a great favourite with both Karen and I.

The night was almost at an end. It was time for the Big One.
The major award of the night, The Independent Country Music Artist 2000 was not a nominated one. There is no final five. It is selected by a panel of judges including journalists, broadcasters and festival organisers Australia-wide and is the biggest award for the Independents in Country Music; possibly the third biggest award in the Country Music in Australia.

There is always a lot speculation about the outcome. I was in the back of the auditorium trying to figure out how to diplomatically sneak out and start packing up the gear which had, due to very tight schedule, been left at the Mildura Workers Club. When they read out my name I was thunderstruck. Most of the next five minutes was a haze. I realized the last year had been pretty hectic but it was only when the broadcast presenters, Mike Smith and Lyn Bowtell began to itemize it all that I started to wonder how Carol and I had survived it. Three albums; including two collaborations ; one with Karen and one with the Naked Poets; the development of Shoestring Records into a national independent label with five acts and 22 titles; four long road tours, final nomination in this years Golden Guitars for Country Song Of the Year for "The Road To Damascus"; our involvement in the development of a Sydney's Galston Country Music Festival as well as our work with the CMAA for Independents were all cited in the presentation.

There is always a lot speculation about the outcome. I was in the back of the auditorium try to figure out how to diplomatically sneak out and start packing up the gear which had, due to very tight schedule, been left at the Mildura Workers Club. When they read out my name I was thunderstruck. Most of the next five minutes was a haze. I realized the last year had been pretty hectic but it was only when the radio presenters, Mike Smith and Lyn Bowtell began to itemize it all that I started to wonder how Carol and I had survived it. Three albums; including two collaborations ; one with Karen and one with the Naked Poets; the development of Shoestring Records into a national independent label with five acts and 22 titles; Four long road tours, final nomination in this years Golden Guitars for Country Song Of the Year for "The Road To Damascus"; our involvement in the development of a Sydney's Galston Country Music Festival as well as our work with the CMAA for Independents were all cited in the presentation.

After Mildura it was on to SA with shows in Loxton and Karoonda on route to Adelaide. The award had fired media interest with a round of ABC and community radio interviews leading to a very successful show in Encounter Bay.

A Big Thanks to Don Shaw, Merve Schappell and Richard Littlely for promoting the show.

After Adelaide Karen and I had a little down time on our way home and visits to the World Heritage listed Wetland, The Coorong on route to the show in Mount Gambier was followed with two idyllic days camping in The Grampians (Gariwerd). We climbed Mount William, which I had done before, and were almost at the top puffing and panting and congratulating ourselves; when to our amazement a man pushing a baby carriage came down the track from the summit. We were gobsmacked! He should have been given the Father of the Year Award!!!

Back in the campgrounds after dark we were
had built our fire and were cooking tea when we were shocked by the sound of what seemed to be rifle-fire followed by an enormous impact which shook the ground beneath our feet. Closer investigation showed that a humungous Red Gum
had collapsed barely 50 metres from where we had pitched our tents wiping out everything in it's path including two other sizable trees beside it. It was the size of a medium building. We had quite a campfire. Someone was definitely watching over us

After Mildura it was on to SA with shows in Loxton and Karoonda on route to Adelaide. The award had fired media interest with a round of ABC and community radio interviews leading to a very successful show in Encounter Bay. A Big Thanks to Don Shaw, Merve Schappell and Richard Littlely for promoting the show.

After Adelaide Karen and I had a little down time on our way home and visits to the World Heritage listed Wetland, The Coorong on route to the show in Mount Gambier were followed with two idyllic days camping in The Grampians (Gariwerd). We climbed Mount William, which I had done before, and were almost at the top puffing and panting and congratulating ourselves; when to our amazement a man pushing a baby carriage came down the track from the summit. We were gobsmacked! He should have been given the Father of the Year Award!!!

Back in the campgrounds after dark we had built our fire and were cooking tea when we were shocked by the sound of what seemed to be rifle-fire followed by an enormous impact which shook the ground beneath our feet. Closer investigation showed that a humungous Red Gum had collapsed barely 50 metres from where we had pitched our tents wiping out everything in it's path including two other sizable trees beside it. It was the size of a medium building. We had quite a campfire. Someone was definitely watching over us!!

New Releases. The new Naked Poets album, "Naked Poets 2 Newdirections" following on the nation-wide success of The Naked Poets ...liev, was released this week and the first single; Shirley Friend's hilarious Mammogram Poem is already receiving strong airplay. If you want to see what a naked poet looks like, see the Naked Poets webpage. Follow the links from our Webpage at http://www.lisp.com.au/~patdrum.

On The Home Front, Matt, Pete and Meghan's album, "Photographs" which was planned for release in July has been held back from release by the unprecedented interest of two major record companies Sony and EMI. While negotiations with them continue, Matthew and I spent a lot of time showing the project to radio and television outlets in a couple of different cities in the last three months; the result being that it was snapped up for airplay on release by 9inty6ix.one the second biggest Sydney youth station and by Channel V the major cable Rock Channel, as well as the ABC's Rage and JJJ.

One of the things that has generated the interest has been the manner in which the project was achieved...completely inside two Apple Macintosh powerbooks. Recording, mixdown and mastering, filming, editing, special effects, and compositing not to mention the interactive CD programming and the jacket design. According to the industry folk we talked to, it is possibly a world first and Matt was immediately sounded on the possibility of producing such projects for other acts in EMI's roster. These developments have made it unlikely that the project will be released before Christmas. It will now be a full album with two clips.

Tickets are now available for our Annual Christmas Cruise which leaves on Saturday, 16th December, 2000 at 11.45am from Pyrmont Bay Wharf. Put the date in your diary now. Unfortunately the dreaded GST has hit the price of Harbour Cruise Tickets and they will be $22.00.

If you are NET capable, it would be very much appreciated, if you could let us know so we can take you off our snail mail. The Web is proving to be a great advertising medium and far more up to date than we can make the newsletters.

All the best;

Pat and Carol