It’s been a surprising week. So surprising, I haven’t really had a chance to take stock and blog about it.

Last Friday, I put up a post on my facebook wall about my Pozible campaign; oddly enough, I haven’t had time to post it here as I’ve been so busy promoting it on the social media sites!

The initial goal for the project was $2000; thanks to the support of my Facebook and Twitter friends (with a bit of help from some amazing press) we achieved that within a week! This is amazing news as it means that I can actually afford to make this happen in a bare-bones kind of way. It also means I feel all warm and fuzzy and super-supported by the online community around my act. Thanks everyone.

Based on feedback I’ve had, the fact that I’ve started to realise I really desperately need the assistance of a publicist for this tour and also that the Pozible Project still has about eighty days left on it, I’ve decided to keep pushing the fundraiser to a new target of somewhere just over $3000. This’ll help pay for a publicist and anything additional will likely go to cover travel expenses. This trip is crazy expensive!

If you haven’t had a look yet (or if you haven’t donated ;) ), please head over to http://tomasford.pozible.com and do me a bit of a solid. There are a stack of rewards, ranging from signed CD’s, through to custom ringtones, house parties and, at the extreme top end, a return trip to Edinburgh with me. Your contribution will also result in my eternal adoration.

That address again is http://tomasford.pozible.com.

Meanwhile, here’s the wee bit of press. Well, actually, locally this was a pretty big deal! A cover!! Wahooooo!

Woah. Things have been hectic since I got back from Adelaide Fringe. I’ve been busily plotting an Australian tour, playing a million Perth shows and setting up my first international tour to play Edinburgh Fringe.

To get all George Harrison on you for a sec, something really clicked in my head around the time of the Adelaide Fringe about the kind of performer I am, and I’ve found myself attaining some kind of new level of mental zen during performances; I seem to have attained a new level of control over my act and I’m really fucking enjoying myself. The fact that the Perth shows themselves have been pretty splendid even before my involvement has been helpful; I’ve been playing at rooftop cinemas, at backyard house parties, turning up unannounced to underground beats nights and being carried around Malaysian restaurants in the midst of a lineup of noise bands. Perth has really been turning it on for me.

I can’t tell you anything about the Australian tour yet, but suffice to say that if you live in an Australian capital and I haven’t come and personally high fived you in this calendar year, you’ll probably be seeing me for a night or more sometime soon.

But you want to hear about Edinburgh, don’t you? I’m pretty excited. I’m booked in to do a month of shows as part of the Free Festival in a spooky haunt called the Jekyll & Hyde. I’m doing what basically works out as a month (well, three and a half weeks) of non-stop late shows at 11:50pm. A quick google image search reveals that the front bar of this place looks like this:

Um, yeah. That’ll work. I’ll drink there, thanks.

I’m putting together most of my promotional bits and pieces at the moment but as I have a ludicrous amount of enthusiasm for this trip, you can see the show’s info is already avaliable for your perusal at the Edinburgh Fringe website now. This thing’s expensive to do, so I’m going to be announcing some crowd funding project in the next week with some very cool gifts for donors, so check back, hopefully you can help me out.

If you’re in Perth, check out my upcoming shows; I’m at The Beat this Friday and then playing a rare acoustic gig between Pretty In Pink and The Breakfast Club at the awesome Rooftop Cinema next Friday. Come down and we’ll get each other drunk.

Also; I received another great review in Rave Magazine this week. My favourite bit is “The dark cabaret of Ford is underwritten by filthy, depraved lyrics, drop dead gorgeous vocals and an electro rock & roll aura that is half Rocky Horror and half Elvis in a Sunday dress.” Oh Rave, you know how to say the kind of things that make a gent blush. It’s online, so I won’t print it all here, but you can read it in full at this link: http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/32352/181/

This is the this year’s iteration of the Tuxedo Cat (photo stolen from Renew Adelaide because my cameraphone wasn’t working, so all these photos are from other sites - should’veaskedbutdidntbutthxtoeveryone), a venue that moves to take over a different abandoned old building for Adelaide Fringe each year. Last year’s was a beautiful, decaying superold building; this one is a bit of a 70’s architechtural nightmare with a huge warehouse inside. Weekend just gone, I basically spent my whole weekend here and fell in love with it. All the best weird stuff from the Fringe goes here. If you dig my stuff, you’ll probably dig most of the shows in this building.

I came over from Perth for a one-off late show at the Tuxedo Cat to test the Fringe waters in the leadup to my Edinburgh season later this year. Though I’d been starting to feel better in that context at Perth’s more boutique-sized Fringe World festival, I wanted to really get my head into the mental space of Fringe before I start working properly on my show. Also, I’d had a shit of a run of shows in Adelaide and wanted to get a run on the board there before trying something bigger again.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to tell you everything I did on the weekend as living in private is not really my thing. On Friday night, I arrived in town at 9:30pm and ran to Higher Ground (photo borrowed from http://jennywynter.wordpress.com ) to do a ten minute promo slot at Late Night Lounge. I generally just roll out a couple of electro-covers for these things as my show doesn’t make sense in the space of ten minutes. It was a bit of a sampler of all the cabaret stuff happening around town. It was a blast, and made me feel pretty good about my plan to position myself as the leftfield outsider of the cabaret scene; everybody seemed to get my vibe. Which is to say, they seemed pleasantly shocked by my antics. A win.

Afterwards, I headed over to the Tuxedo Cat for what turned into a long night of fun; all manner of comedians were doing short spots as part of the Cat’s annual fundraiser to help shows that don’t make their venue costs back. It was drunken, loose comedy fun and a good way to catch up on who is killing it in comedy at the moment.

Then I bumped into my dear Perth pals Zack Adams, Paul Grabovac and their posse, who would proceed to be a bad influence on my lifestyle for the rest of the weekend. 24 hour pancakes happened. I think they are called this because they made me feel slightly nauseous for 24 hours.

On saturday night, I saw a bajillion shows. Some of them ruled, many sucked. I love taking chances. Lords Of Luxury totally caned it with their dada-esque absurd sketch schtick. I followed them with Dr. Brown’s new show and he proved to be as brain-destroyingly awesome as he was last year. He got me up for some audience interaction stuff that had me blushing with embarrassment - no small feat. Obviously, I loved every second of it. Fringe World peeps, if you read this, please get Dr. Brown to Perth next year, we need him.

I went from blushing embarrassment to my own show. I set up in the main, enormous warehouse space of the Tuxedo Cat with my video projector lighting up a pretty red curtain and proceeded to rock. The free show attracted curious folk from the bar; everyone was a little confused to start (as is my design) but it kicked in nicely around the fourth song. I ended up DJ’ing afterwards, which was initially a bit of an afterthought, but once the Adelaide Festival’sBarrioclosed, the warehouse space filled up with drunken punters freaking out to my favourite 80’s and rave party and hip hop selectionz, all throwing requests at me like people posessed. I don’t remember what time I stopped playing, all I know is that when we ended the night with nasty fast food breakfast it was daytime and people were popping in for breakfast on their way to church. The contrast amused.

On the way home, I discovered stale Frog Cakes in a servo (right). FUCK YEAH FROG CAKES. Adelaide-style. Cakey stuff, a big ball of cream on top and sickly icing to the max. I had a pink one and fell straight asleep five minutes later despite the intense sugar rush.

Sunday night was just a fucking mess. Starting out my afternoon with my old pals in Adelaide’s brilliant Paroxysm Press spoken word crew proved to be a splendid way of whiling away a few hours, and it meant that come 6pm, I was drunk as hell on whiskey. A good time to take in some shows, then. First up was Amy Abler’s cabaret show Pianodivalicious!; Amy had already been something of a drinking buddy on Friday night, and one worries when one goes into a new pal’s show that they might fall into the “nice person who I will have to make excuses about not going to see play in the future” category. Those friendships can be awkward. Luckily, Amy spends most of her time headlining cruise ships and lets off steam with Fringe seasons - her show was tight but completely freewheeling. She spent much of it destroying classical jamz on the piano and accordion, rebuilding them to incorporate sections of pop music and some well-written spoken word. It was nice to see a show with a cabaret sensibility that I could relate to; it doesn’t happen often.

I also had time to check out A Night To Dismember, the first solo show by Adelaidian Wil Greenway (left), which was absolutely bizarre in the best possible way. It felt like being related very strange dream sequences by a small boy with an enormous beard. He’s got his own wavelength as a performer all to himself, which is something I love to see. Hope he does more shows, I’d love to see it again.

Finally, I stumbled into my Perth pals’ show Checkout: The Musical, which I’d seen before but which is still funny and a very tight show. Unfortunately the alcohol wore off as the show started so I was a bit more quiet than I usually am but I’m still chuckling at the deadly accuracy with which the store manager is played.

After that, I thought a quiet night of drinkies was in order but it turned into a bit of a party; Zack Adams had been DJ’ing but when his iPod ran low on batteries, he asked me to take over and I once again led a merry disco, bottle of wine in hand, until the sun came up. At some point I took my shirt off when a lot of other people had drunkenly done the same. It was that kind of night.

After catching up with some family on monday, I headed home today. On the plane and when I napped today, I had dreams about Fringe Festivals. Complex scenarios, problems and successes. I think my brain is recalibrating itself. I’m still going to roll with the live music scene, but I want to make a home for myself in the Fringe environment too. It finally feels riiiiight. I know how to make it work, where as before when I’d done ‘em, I always felt like I was trying too hard and not getting anywhere.

BRING ON EDINBURGH, NEXT YEARS’ FRINGE WORLD, ADELAIDE AND WHATEVER ELSE TAKES MY FANCY. YEEEEEEAAAAAH.

This is happening. I’m a bit excited about it as not only will it be a good excuse to roll around Adelaide Fringe for a few days, but the Tuxedo Cat is a GREAT place for my show. This will be HUUUUUUGE!

He might be notorious in Perth, but Adelaide, you’ve gotta understand, this man is your fault. He was born here. Now he’s a quadruple WAMi-winning, national touring, audiovisual, electro-disco showman and cabaret-tastic master of confrontation, renowned for his ability to take any crowd and have them in “mini-orgasms” (Drum Perth).

Fresh from a hectic run of WA shows including an album launch, gigs with Regurgitator and Architecture In Helsinki, anarchic regional touring and his off-the-radar-and-off-the-hook Fringe World hit Willy Wonka Rave Party, he’s coming to Adelaide to demolish Tuxedo Cat on the last weekend of its’ Fringe season.

It’s not his first time playing here; he’s had some huge shows in South Australia, from the Big Day Out’s Lilyworld through to supporting Birds Of Tokyo at the Thebarton through to his show in Fringe last year, Gentleman & Disconcerter. This one is going to be on another level; multiple projectors, bizarre light-up costume changes and his all new live show that smashes together acidic techno with synthpop and cabaret.

While his usual parties are titled a bit more specifically, for this one, he is simply THROWING A MASSIVE FUCKINGPARTY. He’ll kick off proceedings with his legendary anarchic electro-disco cabaret spectacular before hitting the DJ decks for a marathon of rave, cheese and cheesy rave tunes. Shit is going to get loooose.

As he wants to show Adelaide the best time he can and make sure this party is as out of control as possible, this will be a free event. Join him on Saturday March 17 at the Tuxedo Cat from midnight; he’ll be onstage from 12:30.

Last weekend, I took a kickarse roadtrip up to Geraldton, about five hours north of Perth, to play a bar called The Provincial. It was a blast; I was just happy to be taking my show to a town I hadn’t played for six years, but it turned into a really satisfying, super-fun gig and weekend.

This is me on the way up, slightly seedy from the night prior and in the midst of attempting to give Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu the consideration I think it deserves. Now that I have considered it, I will probably never listen to it again, but I actually think it’s pretty good; it’s just extremely fucking difficult listening. The drive up was very tedious - the Brand Highway is just lots and lots and lots and lots of trees. Luckily I had heaps of music.

As I came closer to Geraldton, the road started to shine in the sun - it was as though the ground was covered in glitter! You can’t tell that by my crap/dangerous phone photo, but, goddammit, it’s the truth.

This was my stage setup at the Provincial; they have this really nice enclosed courtyard space. I opened with a short acoustic set before rocking out the show proper; I didn’t realise how wet the water fountain I stepped into was, or I probably wouldn’t have looked the way I did (wetpantastic) in the Geraldton Guardian’s review. I’ve reproduced the text below as you can’t quite read it.

From The Geraldton Guardian review (reproduced here both for my records and your possible enjoyment:

PUNTERS “REACH FOR THE LAZERS”

The provocative Tomas Ford is certainly one of a kind. Those looking for something a little different from their saturday night drink certainly got more than they bargained for at The Provincial. The eccentric electro-disco entertainer stunned his audience with his immensely intimate crowd interactions and his incredible ability to not be taken personally.

He began his show on the tame side, caressing his acoustic guitar and lulling his audience into a false sense of security. But it wasn’t longe before the colourful language and playful attitude burst through.

Ford loosened up the crowd with a singalong which had everyone involved because, honestly, nobody looked like they could appear crazier than him. After a quick costume change, Ford returned to the stage, party poppers in one hand, microphone in the other and a beautifully exaggerated demeanour to boot.

A projector screen hashed together out of duct tape and paper flashed with constant colours, imagery and text while his trusty milk crate stack of electronic components blasted his pleasurably torturous tunes. Ford just made it work.

“Reach for the lazers!” He screamed. “Reach for the f**king lazers!”

What lazers? It didn’t matter there were none - everyone was too lost in his rampant depravity and charisma to question him.

“That feels good, doesn’t it?” He teased.

The tension was amazing with everyone unsure if they were next to be approached, yelled at or dragged under the water fountain like one unsuspecting gentleman.

His striking songs I Feel Dirty and Bash Myself had the audience gripped. It was exciting - dancing on tables, group hugs, writhing on the floor, neon lights, crowd surfing and seductive chorography was simply the entree to a delicious saturday night.

Truly waking up Marine Tce.

- Caitlyn Patman, Geraldton Guardian

Yep. That was pretty much the show. Hopefully I can go back! Props to the Guardian also for their support, it was delightful to get into town and discover that what I’d thought would be a small story was actually this:

Mental rad. While I was in town I got to catch up with a stack of old pals from when I’d been up there for a community arts project years and years ago. I was also reminded fairly regularly that I had been responsible for removing a chunk of dancefloor at a swanky local venue by smashing an overhead projector into it during my first show there seven years back, which was a joint gig with Melbourne minimal tech spoken word queen Klare Lanson. This made me chuckle every time.

The way home was much nicer, as I took the coast road and became entirely distracted with taking crappy mobile phone pictures of pretty things that neither do justice to them or will serve my memory well. I post them here purely to justify the million stops I made to attempt to achieve perfect shots.

I stopped in at the Pinnacles. They are rocks. I remain underwhelmed by them.

This photo is shit. I can tell it’s shit, because this was a truly breathtaking view. This sand is WHITE.

The new coast road goes through parts of national park that probably haven’t seen many folk pass through before. As such, at the moment there are some serious awesome views to be had. This is about a sixth of what I wanted to get in frame; it’s a huge valley of blackboys just south of Cervantes. IT KICKS ARSE.

And that’s the poorly told story of that trip. In other news, last night I played with Dave Graney at Mojo’s, doing an acoustic set. It went rather splendidly and I’m really excited to do some more now that I’ve got the swing of it. Dave was a lovely gent and played a killer set, including following My Schtick Weighs A Ton with Night Of The Wolverine, two songs that if combined would work well as theme songs to the movie of my life. Supports Odette Mercy and Adam Brown were really top shelf too, I’m still buzzing off the whole gig to be honest. More things like this! I love fun things that are good!

Here is a shit photo of Dave Graney in action on the geetah. I like the lighting halo thing he’s got going on.

During a break in shooting in Kellerberrin, John Aliaga and I did this.

If you’d like to see me roll a whole set like this, I’m playing with Dave Graney (!!), Odette Mercy and Adam Brown at Mojo’s in North Fremantle, WA from 6-10pm on Sunday night. It’s going to be a rad night, so do come down. Simply do.

If you’ve been in Perth, you’ve probably noticed that I have been in a spectacularly busy patch of shows of late and have been all over the local music press. Half for the sake of keeping them somewhere I won’t lose them, and half in case you want to have a wee look, here’s some of what’s been around. We’ll start with the album review, because if you’re reading this, you should press play on this player (or click through to buy the album) as it would seem to be the obvious soundtrack, no?

An Audience With Tomás Ford
Album Review by Christopher H James, Drum Media Perth #275
Six years gestating, Tomás Ford’s debut album is the culmination of both his studio nous and lessons learned from his convention-challenging live show. After years of obsessively tinkering, Ford has distilled his own sound - a strain of mutant disco, with occasional industrial effects. Suggesting a kind of Jekyll & Hyde split personality might be at work, tracks like Rockets seem to express his optimistic - and dare it be said, feminine - side, whilst cuts such as Too Far bear all the sonic trademarks of a sadistic dungeon master. In conjunction with his evolving recording skills, it’s fascinating to hear how Ford has learnt to use his voice as an instrument, morphing from a fragile plea into a frustrated roar. His best moments arrive when, in the same song, he merges his polar opposites into one polysexual identity, such as during the opener Nice where the listener feels like they’re about to be dragged into something very messy.

A concept album of sorts, An Audience With… re-imagines one of Ford’s volatile live shows, from beginning to sticky end. Along the way, a few old chestnuts are revived, seemingly with red-hot branding irons. The confessional, id-wrestling I Feel Dirty sets the ball rolling, whilst Bash Myself reflects on a career of public degradation, detailing physical exhaustion and embarrassing fails. Climactically, on the crowd-baiting No Reaction, Ford demonstrates his exceptional testicular fortitude by chastising an unresponsive audience and explaining why this is the worst show ever.

Having forged a reputation for probing the boundaries of acceptable onstage behaviour, Ford has delivered, to date, the definitive document of his anti-apathy, techno-disco-cabaret.

I made the cover of X-Press Magazine’s SALT section (above) - you can read that story HERE. They also covered the launch and said some things that were pleasant to read.

FasterLouder also published a pretty exhaustive review of the amazing two-stage party, as did Drum (below). Also included for your enjoyment is a review of a support I did for my long-time heroes Regurgitator.

Hmm, what else? Oh yeah, interviews ran in The West Australian’s The Wire liftout:

Not to mention Drum Media Perth again, who ran a last minute interview in their Members’ Only section:

And then this week reviewed the amazing (for me and apparently their reviewer) Willy Wonka party:

…and there’s a stack more but that’s all the clippings I got. Still more craziness to come, I’m off up north to Geraldton this weekend to play Saturday night at The Provincial, so if you’re in town stop by. Then some hosting gigs for Tropfest on sunday at FTI and Gozzy Rock next weekend (with the splendid Abbe May headlining), before my epic acoustic cabaret at Mojo’s next sunday night with the one and only Dave Graney.

Then I sleep. Oh, no, wait, that’s when the east coast madness starts to kick in. Wheeeeeeeeee!

With great delight and fanfare, I present to you two new, shiny, FUCKING EXCITING things. My new album and a music video for its’ lead track, Nice. Let’s watch the video together first, yeah?

You may recall I launched my album An Audience With Tomás Ford a couple of weeks ago at Amplifier Bar. Since then, I’ve been on a rollercoaster of amazing shows including a support spot for Regurgitator, a rave party at Fringe World and all kinds of other craziness, which continues this Saturday at The Provincial in Geraldton (!!!!!!!!!), if you’re in town.

The album is now avaliable to stream and purchase online; there’s a few packages avaliable. If you just want the MP3’s, it’s $12. The album by itself is $19.95, or with a copy of my 2012 Erotic Adventure Calendar is $29.95. Or you can buy (nearly) EVERYTHING I’VE EVER MADE EVER in a deluxe $45 package. Stream the record below and click through if you’d like a copy - go on, get yr purse out. It’ll make us both feel better about being in the world.

I’m sitting here, hammering my songs into acoustic guitar-able shape so that I may be in good form for this gig with one of my favourite performers ever…

I’m promoting this one, and I’ve hand-picked a bill of some of the best performers in town. If you’re the Perth/Fremantle area, mark this in your calendar as it’s going to be a hell of a show. Here’s one of his tunes to get you in the zone for it:

Come with me! Take an E! It’s a world of pure imagination!

I’ve been having a blast playing at the Fringe World’s Treasury, it’s a beautiful outdoor venue with an enjoyably odd crowd and lots of things for me to jump on. And I want to do something special.

So bring down your glowsticks! Obtain lollypops! Pair your best Cross Colors hammer pants with suspenders! It’s time for a RAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!

For one night only, I will be performing the songs from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory as a rave party. You might have seen this at the Showtunes gig a few months back; I haven’t done it since, so this should be a special gig. After the Wonka set, join me for a special run through pretty much every cover song I’ve ever played. I’m going to try to play none of my own songs. Expect Bowie, Bjork, Radiohead, Hedwig & The Angry Inch and more… It’s going to be fun.

The rave-ier we can make this, the better. Let’s really get into this and make it the BEST MONDAY EVER!!!