If the Shoes fit…

The Re-mains mit production team in situ - Mick Daley, Adam Young, Paul Owen, ich selbst, Geoff Mullard and Grant Bedford @ Rock The Nation studios, Mayfield West, Newcastle NSW

I’ve written a few times previously of the resurgent Re-mains and I guess this is the next chapter. I think it’s fair to say we were goaded into what we’re up at the moment. Last year, in September, we ventured back to Melbourne for the first time in 12 years. There was some doubt within us as to how well it would be received, but suffice to say it was a pleasant surprise to experience a healthy turnout for our Melbourne show. Just prior, to the soundcheck, Mick and I were interviewed for the Twang program on RRR by Denise Hylands. She cut straight to a particular aspect of the Re-mains more recent history - “So, is this glory run? A greatest hits tour? Becasue I looked into it and the last thing you lot released was back in 2014…” And it was absolutley true. What happened then led us directly to where we are now. It was a tad embarressing, given the surfiet of riches the band has collectively in it’s craw. It was a kick in the pants, unintentional, but effective all the same. A few calls were made, a few initiatives were established and some determinations put it place. If we are to be this semi-legendary act, there’s little point in sitting on one’s past glories. Quickly, it was realised there was over 30 songs to record and fashion into statements in the shape of albums. How retro. We’ve elected to do three of them. A double album in 2 volumes that would reflect the intention of the new material and then one more seperate statement that was a nod to your past live entity. There’s more to come on all this, but here we are working on part one of the new us. I’ve been doing an insane amount of travel lately, involving myself in many artistic projects, given that I’ve decided its the point of my life, but the rest of this post was written in transit, on and inbtween flights to and from Tokyo, via the Ilkurlka Roadhouse, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Hong Kong, followed up by further shows in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen. In that time, I took a lot of photographs, watched my partner get enscribed by one of Japan’s leading traditional tattoo artists, ate some insanely great food and pondered the life in a sprawling metroplis of some 37 million people. I went from one of the worlds most isolated facilities, where only one person lives, to one of it’s largest urban conglomerates. It was quite the shift.

My Quarter, with some of the tools used - Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion, Gibson SG Classic, the self-built tele I’ve played since 1992 and tuned to open G since 2013 @ RTN. Aug 2026

HK International airport - Live, we've been basically playing an all new set. We started running new songs over last new years eve, still with Mikey Couvret on bass duties. There was some work in it, evident plainly when it was all written up on the back of a sheet of fibro in Grant's partly finished house-cum-shed. It seemed like a lot to cover then, but by the time the idea of recording firmed up, Mike would be out and understudy Paul Owen would be in. We joke about the band being like a turnstile, but all manner of players have used it in the last 25 years. Click.  >>>>   Material-wise, it's mostly Mick's customary brace of great song-stories, resplendent in multiple chord shifts and some somewhat unpredictable structuring. But this time, I have a bit in there too, including a song we hadn't been able to get flying around two decades ago. It's called "Sharks" - all about the atypical booking agent experience, the antithesis of the artisitc muse. Another song called "Return to Lizard County" is even older. That one was played live a little bit, but never recorded. It does get ecclectic, but the fact we're putting down songs for a sprawling twin-volume work that are already being worked in front of punters is a reassuring thing. Sure, you're artistic statement is the prime objective, but that can be shaped for the better by what feedback you do and don't get. Rock n roll in its best form survives on the communion between performer and audience - It depends on a feedback loop of give and take... in either direction. You can't do this, per se, in the studio. Indeed, you can get into entirely different modes of expression and working, but the stage gives an insight, worth often more than its weight. This is a big part of what we're using in our approach. The idea of Progression is high on the agenda. Not Prog, but elements thereof. I'd wager 50% of the band has a barely concealed progtard lurking within. There's no moving forward by just staying put and not looking around you. Why bore yourself to death? The 14 year layover has allowed this renaissance to happen... That and some timely events. For me, the dissolution of a futile relationship and the blossoming of another seemed to bring me alive, thank god. The emancipation was palpable, and you can channel that right into the recording process, or throw it to the wind from a stage. In fact, you can hurl it. Or, funnel it down a microphone.  >>>>   I'm relieved this time of being somewhat less of a Tausendsassa, and more or a player/artist. We have Adam Young co-producing and Geoff Mullard engineering. I've been doing this thing where I try to not obsess over the detail, and just let the music happen, and cewrtainly to elt the feelings and sensibilities of other involved to shape the direction of what happens within the recording process. I find myself not wanthing to listen to intently to the playbacks, leaving the room and hearing them at a distance instead. I like to think I'm setting myself more free than I used to. There's still been the odd argument or two, but I realise this is more to do with the differing ways we tend to look at things as artists working on their work. I feel as though the objective is entirely cohesive, but that nobody expects anyone to all looks it the process the exact same way. Adam Yound, the poor Canuck, is really handy in this regard. We can blame him. It was funny, two days into the recording and Paul and realised who Adam was or why he was there and especially why he was suggesting ways of approaching the bass parts. Nobody had bothered expalining that detail.  >>>>   Out at the Ilkurlka Roadhouse, Jay Minning told me about the strange lights in the sky, just below the setting glare of Venus. Sattelite flares. We saw many of them over consecutive nights as well as on a recovery mission to retrive 4 highly experienced bush travellers who had actually earned two flat tires on the agressive track and had used up all the spares. Three weeks later, over Okinawa, peering out the window of a B777, I saw again, Jay's flying cars.  And Polaris and the big and little bear, we travel oh so far.  >>>>   And every other plane in Asia going here and going there. Coming back from the mega cities and meine polymath Frauline... Life just got better again. I'm sure it did this time.

HK to Syd - In the studio, the thinking, you'd imagine it to be similar to doing a show, particularly that we record as a band... Trying to get that take with the juice in it... But there's distractions and there's hyper focus and there's versions of events. But want the magic trick. Sometimes you get it, but don't realise it till weeks or sometimes years later. In a way I've learnt to defer to myself at a later times, or to the other in the lineup. If they think it's good, then possibly that's all I need to know.

Mick, Paul, Grant and Geoff - It’s a serious business - RTN, Aug 2026