Hello! Studio Video Blog # 2 is in da house!

I've been writing, recording, living, loving and talking all about it to you, by my self in a completely round room made of concrete!  I give you studio vblog #2...



Thank you for allowing me to make this journey...

Shell xx

Studio Video Blog #1 - and other stories...

Hello dear friends.  I come to you today with much to share of recent doings.  Mostly music related.  But first, I want to wish a most magnificently Happy, warming and reflective Easter to all.

I have been in the studio much of this Good Friday, as well as general mothering, and preparing for our very family focussed rest-of-Easter-weekend-special-trip {more details soon!} and I am, at this minute baking a delicious Good Friday dinner, and remembering that my precious life was bought, by our Lord, at the cost of His only son, to save all our lives - which I reflect on, often, and especially this day.

So, today there are wooden Easter eggs hanging from anything I can find.  And some serious vocals going on!

My Jamie friend is here too.  

Aiding my pursuits, and twanging guitar strings...

And - Studio Video Blog #1 - has arrived!  Fresh off the digital press!

...Hideously full of my human-ness, my blunders, my hopes, laughter and passion to create a piece of sonic art.  I am new to this way of expressing via video - and hopeful, grateful for your acceptance, company along the way.

Voila!

Bless you, and thank you and hold tight, more to come...

Shell xx

Raging, focussed, brighter better...

Hello sweeties!

Just writing to say

that my love has come home again

from recent work trip

and the world now is completely

right!

That rays of light

are a brighter bright

against my face,

and my mind-

is the more creative

and smiley for it.

*

Also.

I have been completely smitten with a certain YouTube Channel... {I do that.}

It was insisted, several months ago that I purchase a copy of Imogen Heap's new album Ellipse - by one of my favourite little she bloggers... So anyway, I did - and I have loved and lapped it up from one song to the next.

But her YouTube vBlog of the making of the album - EEEEKKK! Never was I more excited and inspired to follow something!

I must tell you, it's what I needed. I am officially spurred on to finish my demos, and get new songs to recording ready. To make this little beauty of an album {which at the moment exists solely in my own head!} and stop worrying about the things I can't do - and just quieten down my raging spirit, & focus on the making of art! Today! The making of my new album.

And yeah, you're gonna stick around for the journey aren't you?

Video Blog coming soon...

Shell {songsmith} xx

Before I was a button...

...I was a video star!

This film clip was made in 2006 on our farm in Canberra. Features my incredibly talented and good looking band mates, brothers Jamie and Cameron.

There were actually two versions of the video made; this one was for our overseas audience, what with the great Aussie outback background and the flag making their quite deliberate appearances.

Another one ended up being filmed about a year later, because the record label who was trying to sign us at the time was worried this first clip looked like we might be a country band - and we couldn't have that misunderstanding now could we?!

Note: I was seven months pregnant with my forth baby when this was filmed! Yikes!

Do tell me how you feel, and what you think? I am so enjoying showing off these pieces of my career to you - and don't forget to push my button now will you...

; )

Shell {Button-Smith} xx

The time of my life...

If you're a singer/songwriter; self taught, young, raw and unknown; and a world renowned producer picks up your demo and likes it, so much that he wants to take you to Sydney and record your first album(!) - it is likely to be a really big thing in your life...

I still can hardly believe this is my own story. And that I got to make an album, my album. We called it "Twelve Short Stories" with each song telling a tale of life, love or woe - most of the stories are about growing up, which I was in the very midst of at the time...

So without further ado I'm really proud say I have my own iTunes button!

And you can "click" it if you want : )

and check me out on the world's largest online music store!

I will leave you with one of our pre-production videos... So here's the scene:

The Tullys band rehearsing in the shearing shed on the family farm in Canberra Australia, before heading to the studio in Sydney the next week on a hot summer afternoon, producer Richard Lush in attendance, and Ben Hakalitz on drums!

I hope it's clear how much fun we had - it really was the creative and professional, time of my life. I am so looking forward to doing it all again soon, but in the meantime I hope you will enjoy this album.

Shell xx

Love you, and leave you...

[a cousin's birthday balloon party on the trampoline on a summer's eve - does it get any better?!]

Tis the summer that really makes me love and feel Australian. And though I don't give a hoot of credibility to the unfounded theory of climate change; this summer has been a hot one...

So it's a shame to see it starting to wind down for another year. I noticed today that the sun is setting just a little earlier, and with it my thoughts are turning to ideas of autumn activities and clothes and colours.

My creative moods are very much inspired by the seasons, and I love the different aspects and inclinations of each one - songs I write in the inferno of an Aussie summer are very different to the ones I will write in the throws of a marino woolen, scarf-clad wintery day. I think about friends I have made who live the other side of our equator who are deep in wintery snow and cold right now, and I think how wonderful it would be if I could take the concord up and across to see them and experience the chill, just for a change, just for a day, or two!

Okay, so this post is lacking a point, and an air of excitement I know! My friend has flown away today to a foreign place to work for two weeks, and I miss him very much already. But a little longing and despair will work wonders in the songwriting realm for me I dare say!

So without much of a point, or an anthemic chorus to end, I will love you and leave you, with an excerpt from one of my favourite and most enjoyable times in my very fortunate professional life... Recording, and all the fun and fury that goes along with it.

...and yes, the man lying on the floor playing the bass guitar is my husband! My friend.

Shell xx

Looking Up...

...with headphones on.

Holding on through difficult days,

Like a soldier knowing when to lay low,

And when to fight.

The war is spiritual,

The path is narrow,

and I am looking up,

with mellow tunes in my ears:

{Image courtesy of BigPond Music}

Shell xx

Many posts, in one...

I've been singing in rooms with high ceilings. To the sound of my good friend the piano - and to the incredible guitar skills of Cam & Jamie. Not to mention the unsurpassed beats of Mr RC. We've added a new backing singer to our on stage musical family, & I am enjoying the new colours she brings...

We played this {below} beautiful room on Friday. Happy people, sensational dancing, extraordinarily hot weather! A country town, a Catholic Church. I should have remembered my camera while we waited outside the ceremony to walk the happy couple down the road {singing Irish folk songs!} to said beautiful room - as I have an obsession with old country towns and especially old churches in old country towns.

On Sunday I took rest. Which normally I don't, and therefore, am generally no good at!

We took the long and winding road back to the river somewhere... Picniced under welcomed, much cooler overcast sky.

Others swam, but I stayed still by the river bed. Reflected on two long gigs just merely behind me; the state of my heart at the turn of a new season, the lovliness of my children playing by the water... And, although said above, I am normally fairly bad at relaxing...

In a place like this...

Next to my love {finally returned home}...

I excelled!

I read my book, and giggled much. Wrote lyrics to future songs in my leather bound journal. I let my spirit rest, and be glad in it.

We drove home in witness to the beautiful valley. How can you look out on it and not say a prayer? And not be thankful? For patience, and constancy, and perseverance. For a blessed, eventful, challenging and therefore, most wonderful, poetic life.

Shell xx

Dear Charlie...

To finally bring Charlie to film is wonderful to say the least - and a lot of other things...

A song I wrote on the pianola in Mum's lounge room,

after Sarah told me she liked said name...

Charlie has been my muse, my tragic creature, my real life & imagined hero...

And now he is my latest film-clip-video-baby adventure!

I want to thank Kate, Sarah, Anna & "Scottwell behind the mirror"

• for attention to everything important,
• artistic ability unsurpassed;
• enthusiasm {for my foolish schemes} galore!
• And just really, more thank you's than a day could hold for letting me prance around {like a big curvaceous purple woman in front of camera} all day!

What paradise would be - to do such all day, everyday anon!

Songsmith {and friends} xx

Adventuring for Arts sake...

Not behind the lens today, but in front of it...

On the set of a new film clip...

Among long green grasses, and the plentiful, purple, poisonous Patterson...

The lens flattered me (a miracle of science!)

And provoked me -

Ever eager am I to show you the adventure, and the art we began making today...

{All photos today taken by the wonderful Anna}

Shell xx

PUMPED!

It had been several months since The Tullys had last done a fully wired, all singing-all-dancing big-wig-gig - and we, were, PUMPED!

The winter season in Australia offers a fair share of solo and duo work; {and I like to take time to edit, polish, record original work in my studio etc} but this was the first big gig of our Spring/Summer performance schedule with the four of us together to take on our beautiful audiences once more!

So even the afternoon before set up and sound check was feeling like fun!

The sight of sound guys setting up disco balls above the dance floor made me smile, and imagine what they were about to witness from up there in all their sparkly-ness...

Wine flowed - {though I don't drink it myself} - entree's were served, MC did his thing, and suddenly we were on. It is that moment I walk up there with the boys and become a different me. I decide I want everyone in that room to know I'm the best! They won't be able to ignore my voice, they won't want us to ever stop playing, and they will, for the few hours they're in our capable hands, forget everything else going on in their lives and just surrender - to music.

Which they did!

If you're in a band, you know there is nothing as cool as making people so happy. Live music brings everything to life! You take your own energy and talent, and plug in to their every musical need and wish. There is a spirit in the air when a band plays with their heart and soul and the audience has ears to hear and feel it. The exchange between you and them, the letting go in order to enjoy so completely, is magical, and addictive.

We remained PUMPED all night, and so did our crowd.

And to do what we do best, for a worthy corporate cause, to be back together gigging again, and to do all this with my dear friend slapping that Bass beside me, is nearly too much good living to bare.

Songsmith xx

Crabapples, Camellias and other Springy Tales...

Well...

Since I posted to you last it has been a week of crazy movement, and motion...

• I had a haircut;
• Screen tested another little musical video (!) with my amazingly arty and talented sisters-in-law;
• Planned a little visit to my abode with a little long distance friend of mine...
• Spent almost an entire day helping to clean my other sister-in-law's house {which they've just finished renovating.}
• Cut half of my finger nail off, with a knife!
• Played Scattegories - and lost...
• Entered a songwriting competition - & will probable loose that too!

And then all of a sudden it seems to be rolling back around to Friday, the weekend, and the first of many a Tullys gig for the Spring/Summer season!

But Please Note:

{In between such busyness - usually while dinner is boiling over on the stove {and because I cannot play piano at the moment with one finger out of order!} - I tend to take little prances around my garden wearing a floral maxi dress, armed with a camera, cup of tea and an eye to swoon at Crabapple trees, and Camellias...}

And {ps} I need to say a special thank you for every loving comment, and virtual pat on the back from all of you beautiful people who have taken the time to look at the Can't Seem To Sleep video; whether on The Tullys Facebook page, or here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your words come to my inbox when I least expect it, when I most need it, and I bow my hear in gratitude for a gift from the Lord which I am graciously permitted in this ole' world, to call my own.

Shell xx

Can't Seem To Sleep...

I wrote it early one morning - based on a dream, a thought, a whim and a whisper...

I had it chosen by Richard Lush for the album...

Recorded in the top studio, and now here; is where we gave it a visual life...

My Daughter Emma on Set {pink}

My Directors, Mentors, Sisters & friends Kate & Sarah mapping out my poetic path through the rushes...

Songsmith xx