This is Simon from Forensic Audio. See him mastering something. What is he mastering? It is maybe something from his pal Tomás. Something new. What is this new thing? Who can tell? Tomás can. But he won’t. Not yet.

As mentioned in my previous post, The Agony The Ecstasy And i, the theatre show I’ve been busily creating a sound design for has just opened in Perth. If you’re in town, you should check it out; tickets are selling quickly from http://blueroom.org.au/events/the-agony-the-ecstasy-and-i/.

By way of temptation and documentation, here’s some of my favorite moments from the sound design in a streamable and, because I’m in a good mood, freely downloadable form. Check it out:

I’m in the depths of sound design work at the moment, working on Toyi Toyi Theatre‘sdevised show The Agony, The Ecstasy And I, which is a dance vs theatre piece built around Mike Daisy’s The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs. We’ve been working on this for about a year now, originally with the plan of doing the play straight up before there was a storm of controversy around whether the script was based on facts. It’s a really great piece of theatre that speaks to a lot of the things I find troubling about technology and foreign labour. It’s stuff that I remember being talked about a lot around 1999, when Naomi Klein’s brain-busting No Logo came out (which you should still read, by the way, since pretty much all the hyper-evil bullshit that was happening in 1999 is still happening). The core people behind the show have created a show that is a lot of fun even as it melts your brain with stuff part of you will probably wish you didn’t know.

My beats and soundscapes hopefully build on their magical awesome theatre stuff. Coming straight off the back of Adelaide, it’s been a wild ride soundtracking this work. I’m hoping I get to do a lot more stuff like this, it uses a completely different part of my brain to creating my electro-cabaret shows.

If you’re in Perth, I’d love for you to come check this show out. Tickets are selling fast from The Blue Room at http://blueroom.org.au/events/the-agony-the-ecstasy-and-i/ . It runs from April 16-May 4.

Brisbane, we’re about to share something pretty special together. I’m going to be killing my show in your town with what is likely to be its’ final shows before I tour my next one. Appropriately, I’ll be killing it dead in a large suburban warehouse, like some kind of demented disco serial killer, over four nights. Make sure you get tickets for these parties; they run from May 16-19 at 9:30pm. Tix from http://www.anywherefest.com/tomas .

In other news, I’m also working on the sound design for The Agony, The Ecstasy And I for Toyi Toyi Theatre at The Blue Room Theatre in Perth. That starts this month. Get tickets here, it’s a fantastic show with a life-alteringly amazing soundtrack. I’m hoping to have a track to share with you from it over the next couple of weeks.

Above: Crowdsurfing at the Fringe Caravan, Adelaide Mall.

A friend hit me up on Facebook the other day to see if everything was OK;  I’ve been remarkably quiet online given my usual facebook/twitter/everything shitdribbling. I’ve been cocooned for the last couple of weeks; Fringe World and Adelaide Fringe were amazing but I’ve had to slowly fit the pieces of my brain back together. But YES! I’M OK! I’m fucking fabulous, as a matter of fact!

Adelaide is such a party festival that it kills you. I hung out with a thousand of my fringe mates and played in a beautiful cabaret room supplied by Tuxedo Cat for some nice crowds. It was all capped off with an epic closing night adventure that started with crowdsurfing naked over an audience of naked people at Naked Cabaret, headed to multiple social dinners, closed out with an extremely fun show and then saw me DJ from midnight til sometime around 5:30am at my Crap Music Rave Party. I had a little too much fun and ended up taking two hours to walk the five blocks home.

My show continued to kill it with the critics in Adelaide, which was rather pleasant. That said, it’s amusing to note that I am apparently the “scary guy” in Adelaide, not really a reaction I get so strongly elsewhere. I mean, some people are scared of me, but not everyone in the city. Always nice to note newfound cultural differences from city to city in this country. Adelaide’s got plenty though, it’s like another (admittedly similar) country sometimes.

“An Audience with Tomas Ford is a terrible, horrific, offensive affront to traditional cabaret. And I loved every minute of it.” - ADELAIDE THEATRE GUIDE
http://www.theatreguide.com.au/current_site/reviews/reviews_detail.php?ShowID=tomasford&ShowYear=2013

“You will leave with a manic appreciation of how amazingly inimitable this performance is.” - RIP IT UP http://www.ripitup.com.au/fix/article/fix-reviews-fri-mar-8 

“I dare you to go and see this show.” - FRINGE BENEFITS
http://www.fringebenefits.com.au/index.php?PID=478#

The season was also notable for being the first time I’ve been able to afford to have my wife along with me for part of the tour, which was pretty great - much drunken goodtimes were had in McLaren Vale, the hills and the festival. Thanks to Tuxedo Cat and all my fringe friends for making it a great time, especially Amy Abler, Abigoliah Shamaun, Peter Marino, the Anthropoetry guys, the Bane guys, East End Cabaret, Jon Bennett, Alexis Dubus, my rad manager Aaron Rutter… so many others… so much fun… etcetcetcetc…

BTW, don’t think I haven’t been concocting grand plans while I’ve been in hibernation… 

So, last night I won Best Western Australian Cabaret at the Fringe World awards. The venue I programmed and co-managed, Bok Choy Ballroom & Noodle Palace, won Best Independent Venue and I was first runner up for the Spirit Of The Fringe Award. This is at the end of a completely sold out run of shows (I’m counting last night as a weird front of house situation meant we added too many chairs to the venue at the last minute only for a big group of people to fuck off, but we were sold out at our usual capacity), a FURTHER run of sold out Friday and Saturdays for my Late Night Gala variety gigs, amazing audiences and stupid fun times. I am exhausted and delighted and amazed and really, really fucking happy to call this city and its’ arts scene of amazing, supportive, talented awesomepeople home.

This is me upon getting my cabaret award last night:

Thanks to the venue producers and co-managers Aaron Rutter and Paul Fletcher for a wild ride with the venue. Can’t wait to do it again. Thanks to my wife for being awesome & enabling and my son for putting up with a busy Dad over his summer holidays like a champ. Thanks to Liz Ford (costuming) and Steve Ford (light wiring) (my folks) as usual for their tireless work on my costumes. Thanks to Artrage/Fringe World for their support in making the venue happen. Thanks to all the amazing artists who plugged their shows into our spaces and brought us all kinds of happiness. Thanks to my tech legends Alex & Thea who made the whole thing work. Thanks to the bar staff for filling me with scotch and, later, bourbon. Thanks to bourbon for being a repulsive spirit and therefore keeping my drinking in check. Thanks to Larry & Michelle for all your help. Thanks to Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley and Perth for really making this month kick ass. Thanks to myself for being awesome.

My Adelaide Fringe season from March 7-17 (9:45pm at Tuxedo Cat) has fucking BIG shoes to fill. I’m pretty excited that I get to do another fringe ride all over again! And this time, WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY!!!!!!

This was my fap-worthy cover for last weeks’ Drum Perth. Full story can be read here via TheMusic. Pretty proud of this one, it was my first street press cover (though props to Fremantle Gazette and X-Press’ Salt section for their previous coverlove).

I’m in the depths of Fringe World insanity at the moment and I’m coming close to my opening night. I’m killing it with ticket sales thanks to the fact that I’ve been in pretty much every magazine/newspaper/etc in town this time around. Lots of Tomas-love in the air. This is a welcome turn of events.

If you are in Perth, head to Bok Choy Ballroom & Noodle Palace at 451 Beaufort St any night from wed-sun and say hi; or even better, hit my Late Night Gala, which is turning into a surprise hit. I’ve done absolutely zero marketing for it but it seems to be selling out anyway, and the lineups we’ve had have been out of this world. The venue itself has been ticking along really well, I’m really proud of how it looks and the great acts we have in. This week we have some of my favourite people in the world on our stages, so I’m TOTALLY AMPED.

In other news, I also played the Big Day Out on Sunday for the first time in a few years; it was beyond fun. X-Press magazine’s Travis Johnston had this to say about it…

The redoubtable Tomas Ford had a midday slot at The Lilypad, and one had to wonder, how would Ford, who can effortlessly dominate an indoor venue, adjust to a festival gig? As it turns out, festivals have to adjust to Ford. Through his usual combo of cajoling and berating, he roped in passersby to turn a small gathering of half a dozen or so into a crowd of 50, treating them to a frenetic set that including frequent costume changes, a strange dalliance in a nearby wrestling ring, and Ford’s usual cheerfully perverse brand of audience abuse. Many there had no idea what the hell was going on - and that’s as it should be - but fans of Perth’s reigning electro-pop cabaret king were delighted.

Photo by Perth’s most charismatic photographer, Tony Lendrum.

THERE WERE MORE THAN FIFTY PEOPLE THERE, TRAVIS but that’s OK, I’ll take that.

Adelaide is now also starting to loom distantly on the horizon. I can’t even think about that right now, but I sure am looking forward to it. After the intensity of running a venue, a late night cabaret AND doing my show in Perth, it’s going to be like a fucking holiday.

In other news, my weekly thursday night, The Leederville Lounge, is now a YouTube TV series for you to enjoy. I am very annoying in it. I am currently deciding if I am going to be more or less annoying. Time will tell. Here it is:

Pretty much how the title says it is how this post is.

Drum Media Perth have just shot out their end of year Lists edition and I was surprised to find myself KILLING IT at the top of the list. Unexpected recognition is always the best kind. This is a short post as I have to go back to enjoying my ego high and accompanying glass of fine scotch.

I’m totally amped to be bringing my Edinburgh show to Perth’s Fringe World and the Tuxedo Cat at Adelaide Fringe. This is a show that captures what I do pretty much perfectly and it’s a ride I’d like you to take. If you’re in Adelaide, there’s discounted $10 tickets for a limited time via BankSA’s Support Act program (so I still get paid as though you paid full price! Everybody’s a winner!), so get in quick. Regardless, if you’re thinking of coming, do me a solid and buy your tickets early so my bookings sheet looks nice and full and help me keep my inevitable fringe festival ticket sales anxiety at bay.

Electronic cabaret showman Tomás Ford is bringing his hit Edinburgh Fringe show An Audience With Tomás Ford to Fringe World and Adelaide Fringe in 2013. It is a debauched, hour-long party showcasing Ford’s costume-changing, audio-visual projecting, dance-music crooning, audience-baiting cabaret in its’ most tightly refined form yet.

The show is filled with party-starting new arrangements of songs familiar to those who have seen him on his many Australian tours, on the Big Day Out’s notorious Lilyworld stag

 = You will note, on the bottom right hand side of this festival timetable at one PM in the Big Day Out’s Lilypad, ME. I am extremely excited about this. In 2009 (or whatever the Neil Young year was) I got to frolick around the country as part of the madness of their national tour; it was, hands down, one of the most ludicrously fantastic, fun tours I’ve been on (and yes, there’s been plenty of competition). Lilyworld has been hibernating for most of the interim, so I’m pretty psyched that it’s back and I’m on it.

Big Day Out is pretty grand this year anyway, packed to the brim with abrasive electronic goodtimes. I’m going to get to see myself, Death Grips, Sleigh Bells, Crystal Castles, my palz Boys! Boys! Boys! & Sons Of Rico (not electro) and CHICKS ON SPEED are DJ’ing. Not sure if I’ve ranted at you about these guys before, but somewhere in the middle of a few months where I fell in love with Chicks On Speed, Peaches, Gonzales, Laurie Anderson and Fischerspooner, my act was born. I once had the most fan-nerd moment in my life, running backstage to attempt to give them a DVD at a show in Adelaide before I knew better than to be such a dickwad. Anyway, their whole approach to mixing up an art-world approach with electro blew my mind. This video is from their amazing first record “Chicks On Speed Will Save Us All”. It’s their first time back in Perth for about a decade; I will be dancing my ass off during their set.

While I’m typing this, I just announced on Facebook that if someone does a decent entry for Drum Perth’s Big Day Out cover competition featuring my head, I will buy them a properly nice bottle of scotch* and we’ll print up slip-sleeve covers to droplift over whatever cover gets picked if it doesn’t make it. This comes with the conceit that I don’t have unlimited scotch, so if two people do it it will be a bottle of black label each. Three people - a bottle of red label, four people will end up with baby bottles etc etc etc etc… BUT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO IT

Note: This isn’t even the biggest show announcement I’m going to make before the new years’.  I KNOW RIGHT?