Wild Country

45 deg C in SA, then Tjuntjuntjara, WA - 7th Jan 2026

I’m dog tired, but I have a few hours at Adelaide airport to kill so here goes - the muzak and auto-tuned, AI slop passing for music on the ever-present ceiling speakers threatening to take away whatever I have left. I’ve just finished another stint with the Desert Stars, this time on their home turf of Tjuntjuntjara, working towards what will be their third album. Everytime I get to visit these intense and vibrant lands, I come away with something that is basically intangible, yet undoubtedly, enriching and life-affirming. Spending a week with the band, in the innocent surrounds of the community school library, we worked steadily towards the goal. We set up like a band onstage, put mics about the place and recorded many takes of some 10 new songs. There’s a degree of osmosis about this; you cant plan for much beyond the technical considerations, and, even as you go, you watch those things fall this way and that with a will of their own. We did end up with ten bed tracks, and about half of those with a lead vocal as well. There’ll will be another visit later this year, perhaps around late April or early May to grab the rest of what we need. I figure this will be a rawer album than the last … an honest document of where these amazing men are at this stage of their lives. They work, think and create with a differnt vision to what many of us are used to, and to work effectively, suspension of norms and acceptance of something from another realm is what must be done. And so it goes. During the days, it climbed to 45 deg, then fell to well below as the desert winds turned from north to south. Dogs roam the tracks and ad-hoc streets, padding out a whole society unto themselves. Planes deliver professionals from around the country. They come and go. Time is flexible. Sleep is deep.

The Desert Stars, both with and without the alleged Mr. Baird - Tjuntjuntjara, WA - Jan 12, 2026

The world at home vanishes. Flown to Adelaide then picked up and driven 2 days with a very hot overnight camp around halfway to Tjuntjuntjara, slayed by tiny whining mosquitoes and ravaged by flies as the sun rose. The ride was a slick late model LandCruiser with highly appreciated air-con, watching the outside temps hit 45 as we crossed the SA/WA border on the Oak Valley road, whizzing through the maralinga lands from which the band’s ancestors fled. We arrived and made ready for the project and between two funerals for a couple of SPinifex elders. I attended one of them proper, laid flowers and sprinkled dirt atop the coffin. The man was one of the great Spinifex artists who I met back in 2012 when I sold him diesel and a used tyre at the Ilkurlka Roadhouse. Desert Stars frontman Jay explained the protocols and then showed me soe of the graves of his ancestors. There were bible readings, country music, speeches, crying and wailing. Just as many dogs attended. Eventually we started work. >>>> Back in Adelaide, suddenly, both my return flights were cancelled outright. I wranged through that and arrived the following morning in Tamworth, not even vaguely ready to perform that night with the Re-mains, with 2000km of one of the most outreageous road trips of my life and a night in an airport motel at my back. I’d say I did the next three shows through a thick maliase, but what a journey that was - 850km of 4WD that took in one of the original camps of the Spinifex people, Yacktunya, during the mid ‘80s, the Forrest, Euckla and onto the fearsome cliff faces of the Great Australain Bight. Terrifying. A 1000 people could cast themselves from there every day and nobody would ever know. Just monsterous. >>>> After the festival, I suppose I had some kind of fatigue meltdown. I wondered if it felt like what I’d read about; minor heart attacks or strokes, but that faded with a proper sleep, when I found it. >>>> I’m writing this last section from yet another airport, Hamad International at Doha, Qatar. A sand and concrete behemoth on the edge of the Arabian Gulf, where incoming and outgoing air traffic is vectored away from growing confict and war, but hey, you can still get your Chanel and Louis Vuitton. There’s another 3 hours to wait for my flight and a blearly 15 hours so far from Sydney.  Transmeridian Dyschronism awaits. I’ve left Australia’s shameful political in-stoushing for a bit. And escaping the baking heat.

Yakatunya, WA and the Great Australian Bight, SA.