I haven’t been blogging lately, or doing much of anything to be honest. This is very remiss of me. I’ll try better.

Today I’ve been musing over this song – Sophie B. Hawkins’ The One You Have Not Seen.

And of the dreams inside you, I am the one you have not seen

My thoughts have been preoccupied with the unseen lately. I’ve been strolling through this town looking for some strand of narrative thread that holds this town together, that makes it make some sense. Somehow. Or just looking for some inspiration. I want to create something. But what? That is the dilemma.

I’ve also been reading up at a website titled The Meanings Of Life. To me, in this moment, life has no clear rhyme or reason about it. Meanings where they exist are created (by individuals and traditions), not uncovered. I am without direction and without purpose. I wish there was some cosmic flashing neon sign in the sky telling me where to go and what to do. But that is just me being indecisive and shirking my responsibilities, I suppose. I watch Sunday Arts from time to time with a great sense of envy. I watch artists just have an impulse and they follow it down a rabbit hole of possibilities and just see where they end up. How I long to do that too. I want to be infatuated with a subject matter. I want to develop a discipline. I want to produce and showcase works of some description. I want to be an artist. Is that a lofty aspiration? Lots of people in my life have indicated it is. And yet I remain so desperately unhappy that it seems stupid not to at least try something that might resonate with me, even momentarily.

My first MP3 Player was an iRiver something-or-other. And actually it was pretty good. It served me well for some years. Now the battery is dead in it and it can only be used by being plugged into a power source. Since I mostly live with my iPod shuffle these days (so much so that I’ve considered getting more iPod Shuffles) I’ve decided as part of the clean up that the iRiver should go. So I am just removing any incriminating evidence from it before I throw it out.

I found some old vocal performances on it that I did… Tori songs, Annie Lennox songs… other randomness. Some photographs too. And now I’m listening to random Sophie B. Hawkins recordings. I have them all on CDs (I have an impressive Sophie collection but that probably surprises no one.) But the truth is they aren’t even on my computer as mp3s… at least not in the media player and iTunes playlists. And within a minute or two of listening to much of this I’ve been in such an amazing head space.

I’ve been struggling for a while to find my inspiration. But surely I know who inspires me. I just need to have easy access to them. I need to have music by Sophie and Rickie Lee Jones and Nina Simone and others at arm’s length. I need to have the photograph of Sophie, Gigi and me on the wall in front of me. I need to be reminded of all the good times. I need to juice those memories and live off them.

What whispers to yourself when you’re finally gone…

I wrote a short something about inspiration at Entertain The Thought. And I was writing about American Idol on my blog… and I found these things I used to have on johnlacey.com. Little things called “What whispers.” It comes from a Rickie Lee Jones lyric. I did these tribute pages to different people who had passed away. I only did two of them… one for Paul Hester (Crowded House drummer who killed himself) and Josh Ryan Evans who was a short person and an actor. I know what you’re thinking “Short person?” Little person, vertically challenged… but don’t make me use the word ‘midget.’ He played Timmy – a doll who had been brought to life by witch Tabitha – on the paranormally themed soap opera Passions. I really liked the quote I had on his page.

My size is an asset to me. People write roles for me.
If I was just another blond-haired, brown-eyed, 18-year-old actor, I’d be left unrecognized. People remember me.

I notice that none of the links on that page about him work any more. It really makes me wonder actually what does whisper when you’re finally gone? What legacy do you have? How quickly are you forgotten?

I think one of the things that really stood out to me about Josh was that we were both born in the same year. He died when we were both twenty years old. He wasn’t here for a long time, but he touched a lot of people.

Rohan writes in the descripton of the “What Is Art?” Facebook group:

Art doesn’t have to be snobby and exclusive – we each have our own ideas about what is and isn’t art. Tell us what YOU think art is by submitting a picture, a poem, a story – anything! – along with a sentence or two telling us why you think this is art.

At his insistence I sent him a picture I had “drawn” some years before.

I’m not sure if I’m necessarily an artist or if this is necessarily ‘art.’ However I like it. I ‘drew’ it in the early 2000′s when I was living in Sydney. It is one artist’s rendition of Sophie B. Hawkins who is – and has been for many years – a great hero and source of inspiration to me. At the time I had been dabbling with little cartoon like figures using nothing more than photoshop and a mouse. I made a remark about wanting to draw Sophie to a friend. I had all but given up in my attempts when I dabbled a bit further and came up with what you see here. To me, even with my shaky mouse hand and amateur art skills, it really encapsulates her innate beauty and sexuality. I love how unpertubed and unafraid she seems in the rendering, as if the world was really hers – perhaps hers alone – to conquer. I like the basic colours. I like the slight variations on shades to create depth and interest and a sense of shadow. I love how her face, hair and features are carefully defined with a black outline and yet somehow her neck just blurs into the ether and into the background.

Eerily – and this is something I hadn’t considered until this moment – I had the opportunity to meet and photograph her years later. I remember now that in our first “meeting” at a JB Hi-Fi store in Sydney that she actually closed her eyes to sing in a few places. And I was there taking photographs with my first camera – a little Kodak thing. It was so surreal.

SUNDAY 24 April 2005
Venue: Heritage Hotel, Bulli

Setlist
No Connection
California Here I Come
Before I Walk On Fire
Saviour Child
As I Lay Me Down
Mmm My Best Friend
Did We Not Choose Each Other
Walking On Thin Ice
I Need Nothing Else
Lose Your Way
Right Beside You
Mr. Tugboat Hello
Beautiful Girl
Feelin’ Good
Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

The setlist might look similar, but it was actually a very different gig. For starters No Connection was produced with a tempo very similar to the album version, and unlike the hurried frenzied pace of the earlier two shows. But better still, we were there early; we got an awesome table, up close. I was in a better position, but more than that Sophie felt really relaxed and was having fun… and it translated very well to the crowd. When she ran out of room on the stage to perform her energy-infused version of Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover, she jumped off the stage and started dancing with audience members. She went back and forth, singing “DAMN!” at appropriate intervals and then motioning for the audience to join in. She did this on many occassions, infact she gave us “one last chance” on two separate occassions (LOL!). Finally the crowd was truly engaged. The room rocked. It was quite simply the best of all four performances. I was so glad we were there.

At the show I met another fan, Vivienne (who, as it happened, turned out to have been at the Sydney show too). She asked to join our table, and provided us with conversation and wedges! It was so wonderful to meet and talk to another genuine fan. And her favourite album is Whaler (as is mine!). I showed the shots I had developed earlier that day, beautiful 8 x 10″ pictures… Two of Sophie, Gigi and myself, and three from the instore performance. (All matte of course – for signing purposes!)

gnome kept saying, “Okay we should go over there and get her to sign stuff now, the line is small.” But I was prepared to stay around for hours. Then gnome said, “Quick.. I think she’s leaving.” She walked past our table, and when she saw us and came over.

“John! Thank you so much,” she declared loudly.

Gigi stood at our table looking at the potato wedges, “Are these good?” she asks…

“They’re cold, but good,” I explained. Gigi took a wedge, and Sophie followed suit.

“Oh wow, what a cute picture,” Sophie said when she saw me getting the photograph out of the bag. Gigi came over and had a look.

“Who’s that?” Gigi said…

I laughed, she laughed, and she said, “Oh it’s me.. no one ever takes photos of me.”

I handed Sophie the silver sharpie pen I bought specially. I was talking to Gigi about the sound engineer (she wasn’t very happy with him) and about taking some photographs.

Sophie said, “Is this for you John?” And I said, “Yes.” She signed, “For dear John.. Sophie B. Hawkins.”

Gigi said at one point, “Just don’t let her talk… if you come to the Ettalong tomorrow she’ll talk your ear off.” I explained that I couldn’t be there, and Sophie seemed disappointed, and from that point on she spoke in her normal voice (and Gigi didn’t seem to mind).

From Left: Sophie B. Hawkins, gnome (back), John Lacey, Vivienne Barrington

Gigi took some photographs of us as a group (Sophie, me, gnome, and our new founded friend Viv). I handed Sophie another note, thanking her for everything and asking her to pass my thanks on to the others. “Australia loves you, and DAMN! so do I,” it said (amongst other things).

“John did you hear I got the lyrics to Right Beside You right in the second chorus?” Sophie asked me. I was surprised to hear her mention it. I had almost forgotten about scribbling them down. It was so funny and surreal, and cool…

Sophie and Gigi had said they were going to wear the hats, but had forgotten. Sophie said they’d take a photograph of them wearing them and put it on the website.

I exchanged contact details with my new friend, and we left the Heritage Hotel.

For More Information On Sophie B. Hawkins, visit the official website here

SATURDAY 23 April 2005
Venue: Tilleys Divine Cafe, Canberra

Setlist
Mysteries We Understand
California Here I Come
Before I Walk On Fire
Saviour Child
As I Lay Me Down
Mmm My Best Friend
Did We Not Choose Each Other
Walking On Thin Ice
Sweet Sexy Woman
I Need Nothing Else
Lose Your Way
No Connection
Right Beside You
Mr. Tugboat Hello
Beautiful Girl
Feeling Good
Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

Setlisting is almost indentical to Sydney show, I was a little disappointed at first. But by Right Beside You and Mr. Tugboat Hello all was forgiven. She said at the end of the Right Beside You comically, “By the end of the tour I’ll have the lyrics to the chorus right…”

During Mr. Tugboat Hello she became completely entangled in the microphone lead. She laughed, trying to get out of it, and repeated the same line of the song about four times. It was hilarious.

Inspired by the performance of Right Beside You, I penned the following note:

Dear Sophie,

Right Beside You I am
Right Beside You I feel
Right Beside You I stand
Right Beside You I kneel
Right Beside You I see
Right Beside You I’ll stay
Right Beside You I’ll be
Right Beside You Always…

Great gig! Look forward to seeing you at the Heritage Hotel tomorrow night.

Love,

John Lacey.

I set up the camera and asked gnome to take a photograph of me and Sophie (and hopefully Gigi as well!). We went over there, and I got her to sign a copy of the UK Best Of (titled “If I Was Your Girl”), Sophie was impressed that such a comparatively obscure CD found its way to her gig. But more than that she recognised me from the basement. She looked at Gigi and said, “the caps!” in strained voice. Gigi looked at me and said, “Oh he made the caps..” I asked if I could take a photograph with the two of them. Gigi got up from where she was, Sophie leaned over and said (quite clearly) in my ear “She loves the caps.. She went jogging in them this morning. She wears ‘Sophie’…”

Gigi gets up to grab the camera. gnome explains that I want her to be in the photograph too. I pulled her back into the shot, and said “You’re the very important manager!”

“Not many people seem to think so,” she replied.

gnome operates the camera. I have a “beautiful girl” on either side, it is a magical moment.

gnome says, “There’s nothing on the viewfinder.”

I say to gnome, “There isn’t anything.. you have to look through the hole.” With this Sophie, Gigi and me all burst into rages of laughter.

From Left: Sophie B. Hawkins, John Lacey, Gigi Gaston

Sophie goes back to signing CDs. (Another man, somewhat older than me, but also named John produces a CD.)

I say to Sophie, “Please don’t think badly of me…” And hand her the note. She looks genuinely concerned and confused. She reads the notes, my Right Beside You lyrics, and laughs and reaches out and touches my arm again.

gnome and I walk out of Tilleys, and I am literally jumping up and down. A period of time elapses as we wait for gnome’s sister to arrive to pick us up. In this time Gigi walks out with a hooded figure (it was a cold night in Canberra). They examine a motorbike parked outside the venue.

“What are they doing to the motorbike?” gnome asks.

“I don’t know.. perhaps they’re just checking it out,” I reply.

Then it becomes apparent that the hooded figure is Sophie. She isn’t looking at the motorbike, she’s autographing it!

For More Information On Sophie B. Hawkins, visit the official website here

FRIDAY 22 April 2005
Venue: The Basement, Sydney

Setlist
Mysteries We Understand
California Here I Come
Before I Walk On Fire
Saviour Child
As I Lay Me Down
Mmm My Best Friend
Did We Not Choose Each Other
Walking On Thin Ice
Sweet Sexy Woman
I Need Nothing Else
Lose Your Way
No Connection
Mr. Tugboat Hello
Beautiful Girl
Feelin’ Good
Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

Encore
I Want You (Winter In New York)

(Before the show, Gigi walks past and remarks what a “cute” table I have. They’ve put me on a round table near to the door that is labelled “Band Room – Do Not Enter.” I’m not sure if she recognises me from the instore or not. )

Mysteries We Understand was fast and crazy, and slightly disco-esque! When she reached the line, “I ain’t looking for the sky to cover my ass,” she couldn’t help but oblige, turning around and wiggling around for the audience. California Here I Come resulted in a broken guitar string, Sophie asked Genevieve (Maynard, her support act) if she could borrow her guitar for the next song. On return of the guitar with string repaired, Sophie thanked Gigi for fixing it before a voice in the audience exclaimed, “Genevieve did it!” Sophie laughed, and commented on how professional Genevieve was.

Sophie was keen to find out how many people had a best friend that had four legs and fur (a trick she repeated at each subsequent show I saw). She explained that her best friend, her dog, couldn’t be there tonight but was listening “over the airwaves – they can do that!” She even replaced a line in Mmm My Best Friend. What the line turned out to be depended largely on when she found herself. In Sydney it was “Saving all my money and I’m gonna take her to Sydney soon.” In Canberra, Sydney was replaced with “Australia.” I cannot recall what it became at the Bulli gig.

Sophie moved to a sizable piano on the corner of the stage. She insisted she needed some serious audience participation on the next song. This, she explained, was our big Motown backing singer audition. We had to clap on 2 and 4 throughout the entire song, that we weren’t to stop and anybody that could pull off the feat would be handsomely rewarded. (Sophie said it was much harder than it sounded. I thought this was remarkably true, as I noted that to clap on two and four my foot was going down invariably on one and three. My inner drummer needed a kick to… well.. kick!) She played a wonderful version of Did We Not Choose Each Other, and I sang along to every word! The best part was when she launched into that section that is on, on the album, basically a round: “Listen baby, listen baby, don’t you do me wrong. I can make my bed, you can sing your song. Ain’t nobody else gonna make you shine. If it’s the truth you seek then honey love you’ll find. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna take your pain away. Isn’t yours to give. Isn’t mine to save…”

On the album, she sings this (through the wonders of multitracking) over the chorus. Gigi was obviously singing some backing vocals, but I was unable to make out exactly what they were – though, I presume it was the chorus.

Sweet Sexy Woman she dedicated to all the women in the audience who were over 49, although she later revised that figure to all the women over 45. (She dedicated Saviour Child to all the children in the audience, “about 93 per cent of you.” She said she thought at the Bulli venue there were ‘about four’ adults in the audience, and at one of the gigs dedicated the same song to “All the sissys.. it takes a lot of guts to be a sissy!” But I digress…) It was quite a spectacle to behold. She turned around (the piano was sideways on the stage) to where I and some others were seated, “Sorry I can’t sing to you guys..” All the time Dave is pounding on the drums, and Ed is producing a captivatingly sensual bluesy organ sound from his synthesizer.

I Need Nothing Else proved to be one of the highlights of any of the gigs. She doesn’t play the djembe so much as make love to it. Drummer Dave Foley becomes less a member of a band during that song, as a sparing partner. It almost takes on dimensions of a tribal war song, though it is apparently inspired by a passion seated in love.

Gigi materialises on the stage and hands Sophie her banjo. A member of the audience screams, “the cracker army!” Sophie says, “What did she say? Oh the cracker army… that’s so cute. This is your song.” (I had been wearing my Cracker Army “Standard Issue” dog tags all weekend, I’m not sure if Sophie noticed.)

Sophie pulls out a pipe and lights it. “Oh I love cabaret,” she says mockingly. What followed was something truly unprecendented. (I never expected it would happen, I intended to ask for it anyway… but would’ve “understood” when it didn’t happen.) She launched into a tale of a lover she knew wouldn’t be strong for her… She was singing Mr. Tugboat Hello! (The greatest Sophie B. Hawkins song in the universe of Sophie B. Hawkins songs, or, at least, my absolute favourite!) She uttered the final words, “You thought for you.. as though for two,” and continued without a missing a beat into Beautiful Girl.

“I love Sydney.. I’m a die hard New Yorker, but I love this town,” she declares loudly.

She introduces “Feelin’ Good” (the only cover of her latest offering, Wilderness) and it becames apparent it isn’t (merely) her favourite song so much as it is a new philosophy she has taken toward life. She tells these delightful little stories whenever she performs the song. Usually they involve saying how wonderful the location she now founds herself in is and involving somewhat fictional characters. In Sydney, she explained how she wanted to sleep in that morning and forget about catching the plane to Sydney, how she hated her hotel room (it had brown walls!) and how she was convinced the water in Brisbane smelt like sulfur. She then goes on to describe the wisdom that was bestowed on her by taxi-driver Jerome in Sydney (and a four year old Tuba player who was busking to get a university education in Caberra, and a Kangaroo named Austen Tayshus – no you didn’t misread it! – in Bulli).

Finally, she performs Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover (the song most people associate with her). She goes round and round on stage. She unbuttons and removes her shirt, before seductively moving the garment between her legs. After the bridge, she falls to the floor and the shirt becomes impromptu headwear. The look is very Thelma & Louise, and adjusting it in such a way usually takes a bit of effort and prompts quite a bit of laughter from the audience. When she sings, “I’m feeling like a school boy, too young – too shy,” I think how true it is. lol

Sophie abandons the stage, and the cheering and applause sweeps the venue. Gigi appears again. “She hasn’t done an encore the whole trip, but if you call her I think she”ll do one.. You’ll be the first here to get one.”

Sure enough Gaston’s words ring true. She comes back on stage wearing a hooded jacket. “We’ll have to pretend it’s cold outside for this one…” She goes on to describe what winter in New York is like, and talks about a fictional persona she takes on for her rendition of I Want You. (Her character wrote one song before going to jail, “And Bob Dylan stole it… and I stole it,” she insists.) It is so magical. You genuinely feel transported to another point in space and time.

I spoke to Genevieve for about 25-30 minutes while the line to see Sophie became smaller. (Not that I didn’t want to talk to Gen anyway.. it just worked out well how it happened, that’s all.) I thanked her so much for doing Mr. Tugboat Hello, “it’s my favourite song ever!”, and she replies in hushed whisper “It’s my pleasure.” I get her to sign a copy of Wilderness for me. She asks how to spell John. I pulled out the caps and said this is for you.. and this one is for Gigi wherever she is. (The caps had “Sophie” and “Gigi” written on them.) She laughed. She picked up the cap with “Gigi” on it, and puts it on. She motions to Gigi who is in the next room, and Gigi puts her thumbs up. I explain that I’ll be at the Canberra show tomorrow night, so I’ll “see you then.” She reaches out and touches my arm and smiles.

For More Information On Sophie B. Hawkins, visit the official website here

FRIDAY 22 April 2005
Venue: JB Hi-Fi (instore), Sydney

Setlist
California Here I Come
As I Lay Me Down
I Need Nothing Else
Beautiful Girl
Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

I got completely lost! Sydney has a rich tapestry of interwoven shopping centres. At first, I had found the right shopping centre (the one in which JB was, apparently, located) but then I managed to take a wrong turn somewhere and end up in another connected complex. But I found it…

Sophie herself was late (I got there at 12 midday, she was set to start at 1pm, but it was probably closer to 2 before anything happened.) I hung around the little stage area waiting hopefully. Honestly it was a bit.. confronting, waiting for her to arrive. The suspense was making me shakey, and nervous, and at one moment I thought I was gone… I decided I wanted to be memorable, not pass out and fortunately I didn’t pass out. (LOL) She arrived. I spotted her long before most others did. She was on the phone to Gigi Gaston (her manager / roadie / backing singer, and director of THE CREAM WILL RISE documentary!). She was quite frantic. It turned out that while the band was there, most of the equipment wasn’t. Sophie pleaded with some of the audience. “If you wait it’ll be a better show… We’ve only got percussion at the moment.” (The percussion, incidentally, for the instore consisted of one very cute snare drum.) Sophie started signing CDs, although I was still a bit too shy to say anything. I just stood and watched. Infact I watched Gigi as intently as I watched Sophie. (Sophie had an older woman with her, and I think until I spoke to her and Sophie after the Basement show, she was genuinely a bit wary of me. I suppose I have a quiet menancing presence.. lol) A keyboard materialised, and then an acoustic guitar. JB Hi-Fi employees and Gigi were madly setting up equipment.

Eventually Gigi told the drummer (Dave Foley) and the keyboardist (Ed Roth) to start playing, that Sophie would just come in and join them. (She actually told them the setlist before hand, although I didn’t take most of it in at that time.) Gigi disappeared somewhere toward the back of the shop. Dave and Ed were playing a wonderful introduction to California Here I Come. They seemed a little tense at first; you could see they were looking out into the audience, wondering when Sophie would arrive. But arrive she did.

Sophie’s performance (of course!) was amazing. It was so surreal to see her, and even better to see her in the well lit environment. She closed her eyes, and put it her hands together to pray during California Here I Come. She then played a gorgeous version of As I Lay Me Down, during which she removed her green thongs and left them on the side of the stage. (Later she managed to knock them off the stage altogether). She said she wanted to do some of the more provocative songs, but that they weren’t necessarily appropriate for an instore – but that she would have an amazing show at the basement that night, and there were “only ten tickets left.” She then did one of the more provocative songs, “I Need Nothing Else.” During this song, she did a wonderful call and response routine on her Djembe with Dave’s snare drum. (I don’t think many people in any of the audiences were very intimate with the lyrics to that song. It contains some of the most potent lyrics of Hawkins’ repetoire: “Jesus when I feel what you mean to me, I wanna meet you on a dirt road and walk with you endlessly. Oh Lord, My God, when you get hard… How can I stop? How can I not…”)

She then continued to Beautiful Girl and ended the set with Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover. There were at least five professional photographers present at the event. Sophie took moments out in the middle of songs to play toward the photographers’ viewfinders. I was so touched when she did the same for me! She looked straight at me… Here were all these photographers, and me with my little Kodak camera… It was so cute and so sweet of her.

Sophie posing for photographers

It was also a very surreal experience. It was like listening to the CDs, but I could see her – but not only that, she could see me too! Infact a lot of the time she was looking straight at me.

At the end of the in-store a man came over and asked for a photograph. Gigi said, somewhat cryptically, “She can’t talk.” I didn’t really know what she meant by this, at first I presumed it meant she wouldn’t talk to the media. (Was Gigi really so concerned with the media?) No, it turned out that she had to conserve her voice for the shows. After the shows she would talk in whispered tones. It became apparent that Gigi was genuinely very concerned at the prospect of her losing her voice.

At the end of the in-store, Sophie began packing up her equipment. (Or perhaps more to the point Gigi did.) Apparently the plan was to take the equipment straight over to the Basement. Unable to talk, Hawkins expressed her gratitude to MGM Australia representative Bianca Jang with a hug.

I stumbled out of the store trying to process what I had just witnessed. I stopped at a food court, got out my notebook and scribbled down all I could remember. (Incidentally I ate my first meal that day at about 4pm… I was too caught up in finding places, and writing things down, to eat!)

For More Information On Sophie B. Hawkins, visit the official website here